Damaged
by Liz Bach
Summary: Excerpt: In a split second of rationality, he reminded himself that he was drowning in a lake in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. He was hallucinating his last conscious moments away...
1. Chapter 1

**Standard Disclaimer**: The show Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me.

**Author's notes**: I know, I know. I should be finishing my other story. Well, I've reached a difficult point in the other story, and I decided it was best to take a step back from it for a while. So I'm going to go ahead and post this one, which is all fleshed out and almost complete. I promise I won't leave the other story hanging for too long!

**One last thing**: The town of Grant, NE, is a real place. Aside from how to get there, everything else about it as it appears in this story is fictitious.

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Damaged**

by Liz Bach

Part I

First of all, he knew not to complain. The chance reading of a dated, online AP report had brought them to Grant, Nebraska, where the fifth person in a little more than two years had mysteriously gone missing three weeks ago. To a small town of 2,023, such a statistic was staggering. Suspicion was wreaking havoc on the town's economy, as residents took to locking themselves in their homes after dark. Parents had begun pulling their children out of the schools. For Sale signs were even starting to appear on front lawns as fear of the unknown became too overpowering to ignore. Authorities had no leads; the victims' families had little hope; and the whole town of Grant seemed poised to implode.

Sam wanted to complain, because he couldn't see how what was happening to this town had anything to do with finding their father or tracking down their mother's killer. But Dean had insisted, his danger-lust getting the best of him. There had been two small details in the AP report that had caught his attention. All the victims had gone missing from an old abandoned farmhouse on the north edge of town, and all had come from tragically broken homes. Add to that the matter of a page in their father's journal, the one with three capitalized words on it: Grant, McCray Farm.

_So what?_ Sam had thought, almost bitterly. Not every tragically broken home stemmed from demons and evil of the non-human kind. There was plenty of everyday shit people heaped onto each other, driving them to anger, sadness, desperation, and apart. And who the hell cared what John Winchester had thought of the place? The only opinion of their father's that Sam had any interest in was about what had killed their mother and Jessica.

Besides, Nebraska was what Dean would call one of those "extreme" states: extremely hot in the summer, extremely cold in the winter, and extremely boring any day of the year.

But Dean was already stuffing his things into his bag, and Dean had the keys, so they were going to Grant.

According to the map, Grant was about 300 miles west of Lincoln, off of I-80. The stifling feeling of dread didn't hit Sam until they turned off the Interstate, just past Ogallala. They were about fifteen minutes away.

At first, it was a slight pressure near his lungs. He cleared his throat, and that seemed to ease his breathing a bit. But then he felt a sudden chill, even though Dean had the heater cranked up, and goosebumps broke out on the back of his neck. He reached back with one arm to massage the muscle between his neck and shoulder and noticed the collar of his t-shirt was damp. He was starting to sweat.

Maybe he was just getting carsick. Dean did drive like an idiot at times. But the road, like everything in Nebraska, had been long, straight and flat. And Dean was surprisingly subdued as they sped toward their latest venture. So this was something else. He didn't like it, and Dean wouldn't either. So he kept his mouth shut and tried to focus on keeping his breathing even. He was learning which details to keep to himself in order to avoid being subjected to _the look_ from Dean. He knew better than to complain.

"So where do you suggest we start on this one?" Sam asked to take his mind off his discomfort.

"I thought we'd check out the farm first, while it's still light out. Take the EMF through the place, see if anyone's home." Dean thumped his thumbs against the steering wheel. "Then tomorrow we can do some research and see what else we can find out about the missing people."

"We should probably try to talk to some of the victims' friends. The report said all five of them had been with other people in the house when they disappeared."

"Check and check." Dean glanced at his brother with forced nonchalance. "So when we're in the house, try not to broadcast your ESP thingy or anything. If there's something in there, it may come gunning for you in particular. You know, you being a freak and all."

"I thought we'd established that we were both freaks."

"Well, yeah. But you've gotta admit, you're obviously way freakier than I am."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Not amused. And how many times do I have to tell you it's not ESP?"

"I'm serious, man," Dean continued, a little earnestly. "Just don't go wandering around or anything without me."

The chills and pressure momentarily displaced by exasperation, Sam turned slightly in his seat. "You're serious? What are you going to do next, put me on a leash?"

"You know," Dean admitted thoughtfully, "Dad and I considered it for a while back when you were a kid. See, sometimes you had this little problem of not doing what you were told. We thought maybe we could tether you to the kitchen table, give you enough slack so you could at least reach water and hit the head."

Sam shook his head, giving in to a small smile. "You are so full of shit."

"Whoa, get a load of this crack house," Dean said, leaning forward to get a better view through the windshield.

They'd turned off the highway onto a long dirt drive and were now approaching a decrepit, two-story farm house that had definitely seen better days. Windows had been shattered and poorly boarded up. The large, wrap-around porch had sunken into itself in one corner beneath a rotted porch swing that was hanging crooked and precarious from two rusted chains suspended from the roof. Where three porch steps had once been there was now a large plastic bucket that someone had used to gain access to the decaying front door. A lone piece of broken police tape fluttered in the cold Nebraska wind, the only remaining sign of the failing investigation.

The place looked haunted, and Dean could imagine quite a few young yokels being enticed by its ominous presence on the huge, wooded lot. The house sat about a half mile back from the highway, and it had clearly been years since the acreage surrounding it had been a working farm. There wasn't much left of the two barns that had long ago begun to disintegrate in the back yard. Three concrete silos stood half crumbled and empty, a small tree peeking out of the top of one.

They pulled up in front of the house and Dean shifted the Impala into park.

"Talk about a fixer-upper," Sam muttered, stepping out of the car and pulling on his coat.

"Yeah, no shit," Dean agreed. He got out and moved to the front of the car, perusing the lay of the land. "Well, Bob Vila, let's have at it." He started moving towards the porch, retrieving the home-made EMF meter from his coat pocket.

Behind him, Sam cupped his hands and brought them to his lips. His breath was warm as he blew against his fingers, but it did little to abate the bitter cold creeping into his bones. He knew there was a reason he'd attempted to settle down in California.

He was uncomfortable again. His so-called ESP thingy aside, the place just gave off an insidious, negative vibe. He realized, disconcertingly, that even when he was a kid he'd often felt nervous like this on a hunt. Whenever he'd voiced his apprehension, their father had chalked it up to the latent hunter's instinct in him just waiting to develop. Sam had always figured his father was just kidding himself. Dean was the hunter. Sam was merely trying to survive.

"Dude, are you coming?"

Dean was already standing on the porch getting ready to shove open the front door, and Sam quickly joined him, skipping the overturned bucket. His long legs easily scaled the distance from the frozen ground to the porch. Once beside his brother, Sam turned to survey the property from their new angle. It was secluded, and he thought it probably had been beautiful back when it was alive. The people who'd lived there must have felt lucky and content. And safe. And now people were vanishing here. Maybe dying.

The door creaked as Dean opened it. His eyebrows lifted, and he smiled mischievously back at his brother as he crossed the threshold, as if they were sneaking into the cookie jar, not an old abandoned, haunted house. Once inside, Dean started sweeping the EMF from side to side, carefully watching the lights for signs of electro-magnetic fluctuations.

Sam sighed and looked around. What with the broken windows and busted floorboards, it was nearly as cold inside as it was out in the snow. It was almost as if the weather had frozen the house in its current state of disorder. There were bits and pieces of ratty furniture scattered throughout the first floor parlor, as if the house had truly just up and been abandoned one day. No one had noticed, or no one had cared, or for some other reason no one had been willing to deal with the house, and so it had simply started to decompose. Animals had had their way with upholstery and wallpaper. Pictures had blown off walls. Lamps and knick-knacks had fallen from their proper places and now lay broken and dusty, strewn around the bowed and buckled hardwood floors. Someone had lived here, and their departure had been sudden.

"Wow," Dean murmured, his eyes on the converted walk-man. "There's definitely some kind of activity going on in this joint. I'm going to check out the second floor." And with that, he started up the steps.

Ignoring his brother's earlier warnings to stay within sight, Sam made his way down a hallway towards the kitchen. The broken window over the sink had never been boarded, or the boards had fallen or been ripped out, and a light snow was blowing gently into the room. It was a country kitchen with what appeared to have once been white wooden cabinets and a pine kitchen table with two chairs next to the wall. Another chair lay toppled in a corner. Without thinking, Sam reached down to right it, its legs thumping loudly in the relative silence.

At the far end of the kitchen, there was a doorway opening to a dark set of stairs apparently leading down to a cellar. Sam went to the top of the stairs and peered down. Pulling a flashlight out of his pocket, he slowly began to descend the staircase, testing each step before he took it to make sure it would hold his weight.

If it had been cold on the main level, it was downright freezing at the bottom. Sam wrapped his free arm around his stomach, partly to ward off the cold, but also because a wave of nausea had suddenly washed over him. It was akin to the feeling he'd had approaching this place in the car, only more intense. Sam was grateful Dean was not with him then, or his older brother would allege it was Sam's supernatural radar kicking into high gear.

The floor was dirt, frozen solid. It was a relatively small space, almost claustrophobic because of the tall shelves lining the walls. Here and there were empty Ball canning jars. One jar actually contained what looked to be ancient peaches or tomatoes, Sam couldn't tell which. A rusted coffee container on one shelf was full of different sized washers, screws, and nails. There was an old wooden oar propped against one of the cinder block walls and a set of snow shoes hanging from a nail in one of the overhead support beams.

Shoved into one corner, in a miserable state of disrepair, was an old, solid oak desk with no chair. Sam shone his light over it and then reached out numb fingers towards the top drawer. The drawer made a mournful scraping noise as he pulled it open. There was nothing inside, so he tried the next one down, and then the next. Moving to the other side of the desk, he noticed a flimsy piece of what looked like faded ribbon hanging out of the bottom of the lower-most drawer. When his first attempt to open it failed, he set down the flashlight and used both hands to pull.

The drawer inched open slowly, haltingly. It was heavier than the others had been. Sam finally managed to open it all the way, and there was a wooden box inside. He pulled the box out and set it down on the desk, picking up his flashlight again and wedging it under his chin so he could use both hands to explore the contents.

There wasn't much. An old broken stop watch. A couple pencils. The rest of the piece of ribbon. What looked like a well-preserved dry head of a flower, maybe a rose. There were a few pictures, and Sam picked them up. One was of a young woman, probably in her early twenties. The picture was from the waist up, and she wore a dirty men's flannel, unbuttoned, over a white tank-top. There was mud on her face, and her brown hair was falling out of its ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wasn't smiling.

Another picture was of the same girl with an older woman. The woman was sitting in what looked like the parlor upstairs, a blanket draped over her lap. The girl stood behind and off to the side of her in a plain-looking dress, her hair piled high on her head in a bun, her hand resting on the older woman's shoulder. Neither woman looked especially pleased to be posing for the photograph.

The last picture was overexposed. Sam could make out the outline of a man's body. He looked to be standing at the edge of a pond or small lake. The middle of the picture was completely obscured by a bright white light, like you see when you take a flash photo of yourself up close in a mirror.

At the bottom of the box was a tattered book. Sam thought, rather bitterly, that it resembled John Winchester's own personal book of tricks. It was brown with yellowed pages inside. Sam ran a hand over the leather cover. As he slipped a finger under the clasp, he suddenly registered a low rumble, as if a train were speeding past nearby. He paused, aware of the jars rattling and bits and pieces of dirt and dust being dislodged and floating down from the ceiling. He strained his ears, listening for the train or whatever else it might be causing the floor and walls to tremble, but heard nothing other than the clinking of glass against glass and a deep hum. He turned back to the book in his hands, sliding the clasp open.

But before he had a chance to read any of the hand-written entries, he heard Dean's voice calling to him from upstairs. He sighed, snapping the book shut and putting it back into the box. The rumbling abruptly stopped. He closed the lid and tucked the small box under his arm. He glanced around the cellar one last time before taking the steps two at a time back up to the kitchen.

Dean's heavy footsteps sounded in the hall, and he made it into the kitchen just as Sam emerged from the stairs.

"Dude, didn't you hear me calling you?" Dean was looking at him expectantly.

"Well, yeah." Sam gave Dean a "no duh" look. "Why do you think I'm standing here?"

"Well, next time you might try answering so I know you're not being eviscerated by a hostile spirit or something."

"Eviscerated?" Sam smiled incredulously. "Wow, Dean, I'm kind of impressed. When I find out what that means, I'm gonna kick your ass."

"I'm gonna kick _your _ass," Dean muttered under his breath. He gave his brother a dirty look, his anger subsiding now that he could see that Sam was okay.

Dean hadn't found anything on the second floor, and when he'd come back down, Sam was nowhere to be seen. He'd tried calling Sam's name several times and checked the front door to make sure he hadn't gone back outside. There was no sign of him out front, no fresh footprints in the snow. So Dean had turned around and headed back for the kitchen.

"What's that?" Dean asked, nodding towards the box.

"I'm not sure," Sam admitted with a shrug. "I found it downstairs. It's got a few pictures in it and I think a journal. I didn't have time to look at it much before you called me up here."

"Well, we'll take it with us," Dean said, pocketing his EMF meter. "Go put it in the car. I want to have a look around outside."

Sam followed Dean back out the front door, jumped off the porch, and landed lightly in two inches of snow. He went to the car and carefully placed the box in the back seat. When he turned around, Dean was already poking around one of the silos.

"That's kind of cool," he said, indicating the tree growing out the top.

Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah. Thrilling." He closed the door and joined his brother. Together, they walked around out back. "So what did you find?"

"There's something hanging around on the first floor, but the upstairs was clear. It'll be interesting to know exactly where the victims were when they disappeared."

"Well, we know they were actually inside the house," Sam commented, watching Dean enter one of the barns. He lagged behind, his hands in his pockets. He just wanted to find a motel and get warm.

Sam scanned the back yard. On the side of the house opposite the barns, there were hundreds of acres of untended fields, overgrown with brush. Behind the barns were a multitude of mature trees, the edge of the woods. Sam started to turn to join Dean in the barn when something in the trees caught his eye. He did a double-take, positive he'd seen something dash across his line of sight.

"Dean!" he hissed after a few moments.

"What?"

Sam jumped. He'd been concentrating so hard he hadn't realized Dean was standing right behind him.

"Calm down, Samantha," Dean grinned, slapping Sam on the back. "What's up?"

"I saw something dark moving out there," Sam said. "We should check it out."

Dean followed Sam's gaze out into the trees. He didn't see anything, but nodded just the same. If Sam said he'd seen something, he probably had.

"Okay, but hold up a minute." Dean jogged back to the car and popped the trunk. He lifted the floor to reveal the small arsenal he kept hidden in the spare tire well. He grabbed their standard, sawed-off shotgun and pocketed a few rounds of rock salt. He also grabbed a 9mm for good measure, double-checking the clip before tucking it into the back of his jeans.

When he got back to the barn, Sam was still waiting for him, squinting into the trees. Dean shoved the shotgun into his brother's hands.

"All right. Stay sharp."

They trudged into the woods, all senses on alert. Dean followed Sam, who acted as if he knew where he was going, the shotgun cocked and ready.

It was late afternoon, and the sun was already starting to set. It was that time of year when the days were depressingly short. It was dark when people drove in to work and dark nine hours later when they drove back home. The waning sunlight filtered through the skeletal tree branches, funneling thickly down to the rock-hard ground.

Dean was about ready to announce that they were going back to the car when Sam abruptly grabbed onto his sleeve and pulled Dean down next to him behind a thick tree trunk.

"I just saw it again," Sam whispered.

"Well, what was it?"

"I don't know." Sam looked perplexed, which made Dean more uneasy than he'd already felt.

"_Where_ is it?" Dean tried.

"I think it went over there." Sam started moving again, crouched down low to the ground.

They were approaching a break in the trees, and a small body of water stretched out before them, frozen and austere in the gray light of dusk.

"What the hell?" Dean whispered. "Where did that come from? I didn't see a lake on the map."

Sam scanned the opposite shore, trying to discern the figure he'd seen. The air around them was heavy with potential energy. He turned to ask Dean what he thought they should do when the hair on the back of his neck prickled.

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Argh! Sorry, it's kind of an awkward place to stop. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Standard Disclaimer:** The show Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me.

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**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

_**Previously...**_

_Sam scanned the opposite shore, trying to discern the figure he'd seen. The air around them was heavy with potential energy. He turned to ask Dean what he thought they should do when the hair on the back of his neck prickled._

Part II

Dean was opening his mouth to say that they would come back tomorrow when Sam suddenly turned to him and yelled for him to duck. Dean didn't hesitate, and Sam brought the shotgun around, firing where Dean's head had just been. He heard the sound of wood splintering in the distance, and then a high-pitched shriek filled the air. Dean reflexively brought his hands up to his ears.

"What the fuck?" Dean questioned at the same time Sam bit out a tense, "Oh, shit!"

Dean heard Sam fire the shotgun again, and the same shriek rang out once more.

"Well, that was worthless," Sam muttered breathlessly.

"I can't see it," Dean informed his brother. "Can you see it?"

"I did for a couple seconds."

"What did it look like?"

"I don't know." Sam was frantically scanning the trees again. "Like a…like a shadow or something. Some kind of dense apparition."

"Did it look solid?"

"No, but I don't feel like finding out for sure."

Dean handed over two more rounds of rock salt, and Sam quickly loaded them into the double barrels.

"Let's get the hell out of here before whatever it is comes back," Dean suggested, cautiously getting to his feet. "The rock salt didn't affect it?"

Sam shook his head curtly. "It didn't seem to."

"Nice," Dean grimaced.

Then suddenly, the shriek sounded once more, and a thick black silhouette rushed past Dean.

"Dean!" Sam yelled, starting to run. The figure took chase, following him steadily. "Do something!" he called over his shoulder.

Dean started after them, pulling the 9mm from his pants. "Do what?" he demanded. "I still can't see it!"

The frigid air stung Sam's lungs. He raced over the uneven ground, dodging branches, trunks, and roots. He reached the edge of the lake and spun around.

But the figure was no longer behind him. Everything was still and quiet.

Sam breathed heavily, dropping the useless shotgun at his feet and bending down with his hands on his knees. He saw Dean burst through the tree line and skid to a halt, glancing around tensely.

"I think," Sam panted, "it's gone."

No sooner had he spoken, then something dark rose straight out of the snow between them.

"Sam!" he heard Dean yell.

Sam dropped to his stomach and heard Dean madly firing round after round over his head. When he looked up, the shadow was still moving towards him. Sam stood again and tried to get a good look at it, but it was as if there was nothing to actually see. It was just a horrible, thick darkness with no form. When it was only feet away from him, the dark mass pulled itself into the shape of an irregular ball.

Sam thought it looked like it was preparing to launch itself at his head, so he ducked and rolled on instinct, just as a solid object went hurtling past him, passing through the mass and skittering out onto the frozen lake.

With one last shriek, the shadow disappeared. Evaporated.

Sam lay on his back with his eyes closed, struggling to catch his breath. After a long moment, he was almost breathing normally again. He opened one eye, and Dean was standing over him. Sam held out a hand, and Dean hauled his brother to his feet.

"Dude, I told you that thing would come after you."

Sam didn't answer, just wrapped an arm around his stomach.

They were silent for a moment.

Dean stooped to pick up the shotgun. He rested it at his feet, then took a deep breath and said, "Somebody's gotta go get that gun."

Sam nodded absently, looking out onto the frozen lake. It was true; they couldn't just leave a weapon behind. When he turned back to his brother, Dean was still looking at him. And smiling.

"What? No. Why me? You threw it out there!" Sam shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, the very thought of walking out onto the ice sending a chill across his shoulders. "Who throws a gun at an apparition, anyway?"

"Hey." Dean held out both palms and shrugged innocently. "I was out of ammo, and that thing was headed straight towards that pretty little head of yours."

Okay, he had a point. So Sam changed his argument. "But I'm heavier than you."

Dean held up a finger. "No, no, no. You may be _taller_ than me, but look at this body, man!"

Sam looked. He didn't seem impressed.

"Nothing but pure muscle." Dean flexed a bicep and kissed it through his sleeve. "Seriously. I'm telling you, dude, it's like lead."

Sam leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and heaved a deep, long-suffering sigh.

"'Atta boy, Sammy," Dean said, giving Sam a small push towards the frozen shore, then shoving his own hands into his pockets in an effort to keep warm. The sun was starting to dip below the horizon, and the already frigid temperature was creeping ever lower. "Before we freeze, okay?"

Sam put one foot gingerly onto the ice and pushed. It felt solid enough. Another foot, and the ice was holding his weight. He looked out towards the gun, and it seemed far away.

"You're so going to regret this if I fall in," he muttered over his shoulder to Dean, who was bouncing on his toes.

"Less talking, more walking," Dean said, watching his breath float up and away like a cloud.

He must have been about sixty feet out onto the water before he reached the spot where the gun lay. Back towards the shore, the ice had been thick and a white-ish shade of clear, but here, Sam noticed, it was more opaque with only a dusting of white frost. The gun was in front of him now, and he bent down slowly, reaching out a hand. His fingers were so numb, he wouldn't remember whether he ever touched the cold metal of the gun or not.

It was one of those moments that seemed to happen in slow motion, but fast enough that Dean couldn't do anything to stop it. He had the presence of mind to think it was like dropping something precious, like a diamond, and watching it tumble down the drain. It was one of those things over which you would berate yourself for days after the fact. If only you had done one thing differently. If only you had that one critical moment back to make a different decision.

One minute Sam was bending down to retrieve the stupid piece. Then there was a loud crack that seemed to move all the way from one edge of the lake to the other, like lightning moved across the sky. Next came a deep moan of ice scraping against ice; it sounded almost supernatural itself, like some kind of angry spirit or wounded monster. One minute Dean was watching Sam bend down for the gun, and the next minute his kid brother was gone.

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The 38-degree water below the surface ice immediately shocked Sam's system. For a brief moment, he had no clue what had just happened. Then, almost immediately, he realized his whole body was submerged in the near-frozen lake, including his head, and he was overwhelmed by an impulse to breathe. His first, uncontrollable reflex was to gasp for air, and he was rewarded with a mouthful of freezing water.

Amidst his panic, Sam could feel his heart rate quicken, and he attempted to kick his way to the surface. But his jacket and clothes were now drenched and heavy, weighing him down, pulling him down into the lake, black like night. After only seconds, he felt like he had been under for minutes, and after only a brief struggle, he couldn't kick anymore, couldn't move his arms or breathe.

But he was still thinking. And he thought how, given their lives and the things he and his brother and father had seen and done, this would be such an absurd way for him to die. So absurd, in fact, that he convinced himself it wasn't actually happening. And if it wasn't happening, there was no need to struggle anymore. So he just stopped moving, stopped trying to hold his breath, and waited to wake up.

The idea that this was a nightmare…well, that was absolutely within the realm of Winchesterland. So he would just wait for Dean to come and wake him up. Lately, Dean had always been there when he woke up. If Dean wasn't there soon, he would know he was dead.

He relaxed, distantly aware that the water was steadily leeching the heat from his extremities and head. The water was wrapped all around him, enveloping him in its cold embrace. He felt almost as if the lake had grown fingers that were running up and down his arms, his legs, across his chest, through his hair. The fingers turned to hands, and he was no longer sinking. The hands were soft, strong, and many, and they held him up. Suspended him just below the shelf of ice over his head.

And then the water spoke.

Sam mentally shook his befuddled head. In a split-second of rationality, he reminded himself that he was drowning in a lake in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. He was hallucinating his last conscious moments away.

Dreaming of voices in the water chanting, "Rain. _It's rain_."

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"Sam!"

One thing about the Winchester lifestyle was that it had taught the Winchester men to think fast. Sam had gone under without so much as a splash, and after several seconds, Dean couldn't see that he was making any effort to resurface.

With numb fingers, Dean unzipped and tore off his coat and the flannel he wore beneath it. He threw them to the ground and then made his way to the edge of the lake.

He moved out cautiously, but as quickly as he dared, onto the ice. While it seemed to have taken Sam only minutes to cover the distance out to the gun, Dean felt like it was now taking him hours to get there. He wanted to move faster, to run, but he couldn't risk splintering the ice further and falling in himself.

He grimaced and kept his eyes on the spot where his brother had been, willing the ice to hold. He should never have made Sam go out there.

When he noticed the ice getting darker and more opaque, Dean slowed down and dropped to his hands and knees. Here it looked like the ice had thawed and then frozen over again, making it weaker more likely to break. He sprawled out completely on his stomach, lying flat in an effort to distribute his weight as widely as possible against the fragile surface.

He inched closer to the hole and saw it: Sam's head, just below the surface of the water. Almost as if someone or something was holding him there. Dean didn't have time to be relieved that his brother was still there. He knew freezing water could stop a healthy heart. He plunged an arm into the lake and grunted loudly as the cold hit him.

"Son of a _bitch!_" he yelled, gritting his teeth.

After fumbling for far too long, he finally found Sam's coat and grabbed onto it. He shifted his weight and put his other arm in, trying to hook Sam under his arms. But the water was quickly turning him to ice, and Sam when he was dry was no lightweight. Dean could barely feel what he was doing because of the biting cold, and he couldn't find a good angle from which to gain leverage.

As he pulled, he struggled to remember the last thing he had said to Sam. He knew it had been something petty. That was what they did. It was how they operated. But he would be damned if the last thing his little brother heard in his life was some empty, smart-assed comment from Dean. And he would be doubled-damned if this was the way Sam went, slipping under in silence.

Because Dean had thought about it before. He'd thought about his tremendous burden, his self-assigned mission to keep his brother safe and alive. And in his darkest moments, he'd admitted that, as strong and determined as he was, he wasn't sure he could do it. So he had imagined his brother's death, whenever it happened, as an earth-shattering event. Sam would go down fighting; Sam would go down in a blaze of glory; in the grand scheme of things, Sam was that extremely important. Sam's death would be catastrophic, and in its magnitude, it would take Dean down with it. And from their demise, lives would be saved.

As that dire thought forced itself into Dean's consciousness, he was suddenly pulling his brother out of the water. Slowly, laboriously, he dragged Sam onto solid ice. As Dean got to his feet, he draped one of Sam's arms over his shoulder and hauled him the sixty or so feet back to the shore, where they both landed in a heap next to Dean's discarded clothes.

Panting, he put both hands on either of Sam's cold cheeks and froze like that for the briefest of moments before Sam sputtered, lake water spilling out of his mouth. Then he was coughing weakly, his eyes still closed.

"Sam, get up," Dean ordered, a wave of premature, giddy relief washing over him. He struggled to pull his brother to a sitting position in the snow. He grabbed a coat sleeve and pulled one arm out, then the other, and threw Sam's saturated coat to the ground. Then he grabbed Sam's shirt at the back of his neck and proceeded to pull it off over his head.

Dean noticed distractedly that Sam's torso was an unnatural shade of bluish pale, and he knew time and the dwindling sun were working against them. Not wasting a second, he pulled Sam's arms through his own dry flannel, then took the coat he'd shed and wrapped it around Sam's shoulders.

"Okay, Sammy boy, get up," he repeated, trying to drag Sam to his feet. "I need you to walk, bro. Can you do that?"

Sam opened his eyes and nodded slowly. He was shivering. He hadn't been in the water long enough for hypothermia to set in, but Dean knew there was still a chance of it developing if he couldn't get Sam warm and dry soon.

Eventually, he maneuvered Sam into a somewhat standing position. He tucked Sam's wet clothes and the shotgun under one arm, and they started walking. Most of Sam's weight was against his older brother, but Dean could tell he was at least making an effort to move towards the Impala.

Then suddenly, mid-step, he stopped.

"What?" Dean demanded. They didn't have time for this.

"Dean, wait," Sam rasped, the words slightly slurred.

"For what? I'm wearing a wet t-shirt here, man. You think this can at least wait until we're in the car?"

"But Dean," Sam all but whined, leaning more heavily against Dean. "We have to go back."

"We'll go back. We'll go back tomorrow when we have more clothes on, okay?"

"But Dean, the gun. I forgot the gun. I went to pick it up, but I think I left it back there on the lake."

Dean rolled his eyes and started walking again, propelling Sam along with him. "Forget about it, Sammy. The gun's _in_ the lake now, and you're not going back to get it. Now come on!"

"But Dean – "

"Sam, if you don't help me get your ass back to the car pretty damn quick, we're both going to freeze to death!"

Finally, that shut him up.

**:  
**

It seemed like it had taken forever for Dean to drive them into town, the Impala's heater dutifully forcing warm air all around them. Sam sat hunched in the passenger seat, his arms pulled close to his body, his teeth chattering. His eyes were closed tightly, and his forehead rested on the window, brown curls laden with water droplets as his hair began to thaw.

Dean pulled into the lot of the first motel they encountered, an appropriate dive called The Drake. The tiny front office was being warmed excessively by a noisy space heater sitting propped on a small, round table in the corner. The attendant was perched on a stool behind the counter, his arms folded across his chest, watching a thirteen-inch, black and white television across the room. He stood when Dean entered.

"I need a room," Dean had blurted out, pulling a wad of cash from his back jeans pocket.

The man gave Dean and his still-wet t-shirt a skeptical look.

"Today!" Dean demanded urgently.

Someone said something on TV, and the speaker erupted with canned laughter.

"Just one night?" the man asked, unhooking a key from a board beneath the counter.

"Probably a couple," Dean said, glancing back out at the car. It was dark now, and he couldn't see his brother inside.

The man nodded, handing over the key. "It's 50 bucks a night. If you've got a credit card, we can settle when you're ready to leave."

Dean flipped through the bundle of bills in his hands and plunked down two twenties and a ten. "Just give me the key," he grunted.

The man shrugged, sliding the key onto the counter. Dean snatched it.

"Room number three around back!" the man called after him as Dean rushed back out to the car.

He drove around to the back side of the single-story motel and parked in front of their room. He pocketed and keys and then hurried around to open the passenger side door.

"You ready to warm up?" he asked his brother, helping him to stand.

Sam didn't acknowledge him, just allowed himself to be led to the door and into the relatively warm room. Compared to where they'd been for the past hour or so, the motel actually felt downright tropical.

Dean sat Sam down on the edge of one of the beds and went back out to the car to get their bags from the back seat. The box Sam had found back at the McCray farm was sitting on the seat, so he grabbed it, too, and brought it inside.

Sam was where Dean had left him, sitting stiffly with his arms folded tight against his chest.

"You're lucky I like you," Dean muttered, pulling back the bed covers. His fingers were still numb as he quickly got Sam out of his remaining wet clothes. He went to Sam's duffel and pulled out a warm-looking pair of track pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, then helped his brother put them on.

"Why is it so fucking cold?" Sam complained, his eyes still closed as he laid down in the bed. Dean pulled the covers over him and then grabbed the comforter from the other bed and threw that over Sam as well.

"Hey, you quit your bitching."

Dean found a small glass in the bathroom and filled it with warm water. Then he let the water get hot and tossed a couple towels into the sink.

He brought the glass out to Sam and gently propped him up slightly, pressing the glass into his hands.

"Drink it."

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"It's a fucking Shirley Temple," Dean snapped, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "_Jesus_. It's water, Sam."

Sam recoiled slightly. "I'm so sick of water, Dean."

"Yeah, I bet," Dean grimaced. "Just drink it, Sammy. It'll help with the cold."

Sam brought the glass to his lips and took several tentative swallows.

"Keep drinking," Dean ordered, going back to the bathroom, where the towels were soaked through. He shut off the faucet and wrung the excess water from the towels. Then he took them out into the room.

Once again, Sam was exactly how Dean had left him. Dean took the glass from his hands and set it down on the bedside table. Then he wrapped a hot towel around Sam's neck and tucked one on either side of his torso.

"Is it getting any better?" Dean asked. He reached out and briefly stroked a wet lock of hair from Sam's forehead.

"Yeah," Sam mumbled. "But I'm getting wet again."

Dean closed his own eyes and took a deep breath. He wiped both hands over his face and shook his head. Satisfied that Sam was out of immediate danger, Dean stood and pulled a dry shirt from his bag. Then he went to the window and cranked up the heating unit until hot air was billowing into the room. He changed shirts and looked over at his brother.

Dean's legs suddenly went all wobbly, and he slumped down into a hard chair near the door. He leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"The next time you don't want to do something, Sam, just don't do it." He watched the rise and fall of Sam's chest wearily. "Dying is a shit ass way to get back at somebody."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sam murmured drowsily, his eyes still closed.

Dean heaved a sigh that shuddered only a tiny bit. "I'm serious," he said quietly.

Sam didn't respond. Dean wondered if he was really asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Standard Disclaimer**: The show Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me.

**Author's Note:** I love the kind reviews! Thank you so much to those of you who take the time to comment. As much fic as is out there already for this show, I personally find it a little difficult to write because the characters are still so new and still developing. So it definitely helps to know somebody thinks I'm doing them justice. At any rate, please continue to let me know what you think.

* * *

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

**_Previously..._**

_"The next time you don't want to do something, Sam, just don't do it." He watched the rise and fall of Sam's chest wearily. "Dying is a shit ass way to get back at somebody."_

_"I'll keep that in mind," Sam murmured drowsily, his eyes still closed._

_Dean heaved a sigh that shuddered only a tiny bit. "I'm serious," he said quietly._

_Sam didn't respond. Dean wondered if he was really asleep._

Part III

Dean was sprawled in the same chair he'd been sitting in for the past hour, trying not to watch Sam as he slept. His right knee was bouncing nervously, and he was absently working at gnawing off the now jagged nail on his left pinky finger.

He was agitated. With himself. With Sam.

The whole thing with the ice, it hadn't been Dean's fault. Sam wasn't a little kid anymore; it was well within his power to refuse to do something Dean told him to do. Nor was Sam a dumb-ass; he should've been able to see that the farther out he got, the weaker the ice was becoming. And yet he'd kept walking. It would be irrational for Dean to blame himself for what had happened at the McCray farm that evening.

Dean was being irrational.

Sam had been asleep for about five hours now. Dean had watched him for the first hour to make sure he was truly out of the woods. Then he'd grabbed the car keys and headed out to find something to eat. On his way back, he'd stopped in at the front desk to chat up the clerk, and when he got back to the room, Sam still appeared to be sleeping. So Dean had pulled out the laptop and started running searches in the _Perkins County Gazette_. About fifteen fruitless minutes into his search, he'd flipped on the TV for company.

Now Dean heard a sigh from the bed and turned to see Sam with his eyes open, brow furrowed, staring straight up at the ceiling. He'd noticed some time ago that whenever Sam woke, he had a pensive look on his face, like he was trying to figure something out or he had just finished figuring something out, and it never looked like it was anything good.

"Hey, you awake?"

"Getting there," Sam groaned, propping himself up on an elbow and rubbing his eyes. He looked patently confused as he gazed around the room. "Where are we?"

Dean turned back to the computer screen, its blue light illuminating his face and reflecting in his eyes. "Disneyland," he deadpanned. "There was a freak snow storm, and they had to shut down all the rides. I figured we'd come back here to wait it out."

Sam sighed and flopped back down onto the pillow. "Has anyone ever told you sarcasm is not one of your more endearing qualities?"

Dean frowned. "Actually, no. No one's ever told me that," he said with a small shrug.

"Consider yourself officially informed." Sam rested a forearm over his eyes. "God, it's hot in here."

"Dude, a few hours ago you were singing a completely different tune."

Sam was quiet for a moment. Without moving, he said, "Ah, yeah. The lake." He sat up suddenly and looked at his brother. "What was that thing?"

Dean was a little startled by Sam's sudden intensity. "That's what I've been trying to find out," he admitted, nodding to the computer screen.

"And?"

"_Aaand_ I can't find a single article about the McCray family in the county newspaper archives. And every mention of the farm I find is in reference to the people who've gone missing there over the past couple years."

"So nothing new."

"Not in the papers, anyway." Dean smiled significantly and shifted his eyes to his brother, who was looking at him expectantly. "But I did have a somewhat productive conversation with the guy at the front desk while you were passed out. He shared an interesting bit of local folklore with me."

Sam kept looking. "Which was?"

"I guess nobody really knows what happened to the McCrays. They just up and abandoned the house one day. A few years down the line, the place is still sitting empty, so somebody purchases the land and hires some company to demolish the farm. Except when the demolition crew gets there, their equipment and machinery start to go haywire. They can't get their shit under control, and a guy's legs get crushed under a bulldozer that's mysteriously driving itself. So the crew hightails it out of there, and nobody ever has the balls to go back and try it again."

Sam was studying the bedspread intently. "A poltergeist?"

Dean shrugged. "Sounds like it to me. That's why the place is still sitting there like the McCrays left it, and that's why everyone thinks it's haunted."

"Well, that still doesn't explain the recent disappearances. A poltergeist wouldn't be responsible for snatching people. Poltergeists can be mean sons of bitches; they move objects, attack people and animals. But I've never heard of one actually taking a person."

"Yeah, me neither," Dean agreed, powering off the laptop.

"So what now?"

Dean slapped his hands on his knees and stood up. "Now I'm gonna catch a few Z's. I swear, saving your ass always makes me so fucking tired." He moved toward the empty bed, pulling his shirt over his head as he did. "You might think about following my lead."

Sam shook his head darkly. "Eh. Sleeping's overrated."

Dean paused in a state of semi-undress, his t-shirt wrapped around his arms, which were still stuck in the sleeves. "What're you, going to run on empty for the rest of your life, Sam? You just got attacked by a…" He frowned. "…something-or-other, and then you fell into a frozen lake. Very graceful, by the way." He slid the shirt the rest of the way off. "Dude, I swear, we must have nine lives."

"All together, or individually?" Sam asked soberly. "Because if that's a combined total, I might start to worry."

Dean had started it, but now that they were talking about death, he just wanted Sam to shut up. "Look, maybe it's just me, but five hours hardly seems like long enough..." His voice trailed off as he realized Sam wasn't listening.

Sam had pushed the covers aside and brought his legs around to the floor on the side of the bed. He sat there for a moment, tightly gripping the seam of the mattress to steady himself. His whole body was stiff, and he had a headache that felt like a vice squeezing in at his temples. Honestly, although the room temperature was somewhere around 86 degrees, a cold lump had settled in the pit of his stomach. It was distracting, and in their line of work, distractions could be deadly.

Dean recognized his brother's silence for what it was: the end of that conversation, per Sam Winchester, information withholder extraordinaire.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Boy, you are out of it, aren't you?" Dean stripped down to his shorts and then stretched out on the bed. "It's ten-thirty. If you're hungry, I brought you back a burger and fries."

Sam glanced over at the small table near the door. Sitting next to the laptop he noticed a crumpled, five-hours-old, white take-out bag. He could practically see through it because of the grease that had soaked through the paper.

"Thanks," he said, pushing himself up off the bed. "As appetizing as that looks, I think I'll pass."

Dean shrugged and rolled over onto his stomach. "Suit yourself, Mary Kate."

Sam made a face, but didn't bother reproving his brother's tastelessness. Such a comment would be wasted on Dean.

Instead, Sam went to the window and turned down the heat. He stood there near the end of Dean's bed for a long moment in the dark, his arms wrapped protectively around himself. The light from the TV animated the shadows on the walls, their bend and pull slightly hypnotic.

"Sam, are you going to move, or do you want me to start having your mail forwarded to you right there?" Dean groaned.

Sam shook himself. "What?"

Dean's face was still buried in his pillow. "I said move! Go sit down or something. I can't sleep with you standing there like that. You're creeping me out."

"Right. Sorry."

Sam didn't move, though. He kept standing, and the shadows kept pulsating. And Dean squeezed his eyes shut tightly, aware of Sam's physical presence at the foot of the bed, but also aware that Sam was nowhere near him at that moment. It was something that Sam did to himself, at the same time as it was being done to him.

Dean pulled a pillow over his head.

**:  
**

"Dean, wake up."

Sam was pulling at his arm, and Dean jerked awake. The motel room was still dark, except for the glowing slivers of bathroom light that fought their way through the gaps between the old metal door and its frame. He glanced at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table. It was six-thirty. Dean squinted at the red numbers to make sure he was seeing them correctly. Then he turned and glowered at his brother, who was sitting on the edge of the opposite bed leaning towards him. He was already fully dressed in jeans and a sweater, and his hair was damp from the shower.

"We'd better be under imminent attack, or I'm going to kill you."

"Dean, I just talked to one of the latest victim's friends. He and his mom are meeting us for breakfast before school, so you need to get up and get dressed. And wear something presentable."

Sam flipped on the light next to the clock, and Dean groaned loudly.

"Dude, give a guy some warning when you're going to do that." He pulled the comforter over his head and then groaned again as he felt it being yanked back off. "Damn you and your circadian rhythms," he grumbled. "I purposely didn't set that alarm clock."

"I just want to get this job done," Sam said, pulling on his shoes. They were still slightly wet from the night before.

Dean rolled out of bed and reached both arms above his head. One of his shoulders popped. He frowned belatedly. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean? 'Wear something presentable?' I'm always presentable."

Sam was examining his coat, which Dean had draped over a chair and placed near the heating unit the night before. It was still wet and cold. He would just have to wear a jacket and suffer through the elements.

"I told them we were film students researching a possible documentary project."

Dean grabbed his bag off the floor and made his way to the bathroom. A gust of warm, steamy air rushed out at him when he opened the door. "Gah, it smells like girl in here!" he complained, closing the door behind him.

"That's soap," Sam said, digging through his own bag, looking for his watch. "And shampoo. You should try them." He dropped the bag and looked around the room.

Sam spied the watch next to the laptop on the small round table where Dean had been researching the night before. He snapped it on his wrist and then sat down to wait while Dean completed his beauty regimen. Absently, he picked up the soggy take-out bag his brother had procured for him. He was leaning over to lob it into the trash when he saw the small wooden box he'd stolen from the McCray house sitting on the opposite chair.

He lifted the box to the table and raised the lid. The contents looked even more mundane now than they had back in the basement. It made Sam a little sad to be looking through them. He wondered what remnants of his life someone might find one day in the future, and what they might think based on insignificant bits and pieces.

He briefly glanced at the pictures again, then pulled out the faded journal. Its leather cover was dirty and worn smooth from fingers repeatedly sliding the clasp open and shut. He opened it to the first page, and there was a pen and ink sketch of the old farm house in its original glory. The next page appeared to be the first of a series of charts detailing the demarcations and contents of the fields.

He kept turning random pages, encountering what looked like livestock birth and sales records and details of area weather patterns. He'd flipped his way about halfway through the journal when he heard the bathroom door click open, and Dean emerged fully dressed with a towel wrapped like a turban on his head.

"See anything we can use?" Dean asked when he noticed what Sam was doing. He unraveled the towel and rubbed it against his hair.

Sam shook his head and tossed the journal back into the box. "Mostly just farm stuff. Crop rotation…cow mating rituals – "

"And you can stop right there," Dean interrupted with a raised hand. Then he cocked an eyebrow and threw his brother a wicked glance. "Bring back happy memories of your first time?" he asked, and winked.

Dean thought he might shit his pants when Sam actually turned red.

"Are you ready or what? We're supposed to meet these people in ten minutes."

"Where are we going?" Dean asked, grabbing his coat and keys. He opened the motel room door and waved his brother out ahead of him.

"Some diner up the road. The kid said we couldn't miss it."

And miss it they did not. There were no traffic lights on the main drag of Grant. There was barely even a main drag. They passed a Handy Andy hardware store, a Jack and Jill, and a BP station that was ridiculously overpriced. There were three tall, metal grain silos jutting up from the middle of the town with Co-Op logos painted on the sides. The small businesses lining the road, like the card shop and the ladies clothing boutique, were dark this early in the morning. The snow was piled high in dirty banks where it had been plowed up against the curb. There was fresh slush pooled in the cracks on the sidewalk.

"This must be it," Dean announced, pulling into the lot outside the small restaurant. There were only a few cars, and there was a single gasoline pump out in front of the building.

"Eat Here and Get Gas," Sam read the sign.

Dean looked at him and grinned. "Nice."

Sam shook his head and followed his brother up to the door.

The place was nearly empty. A free-standing sign near the door had "please seat yourself" written on it in black dry erase marker. There were vinyl booths lining the front and one of the side walls and square metal tables in the middle section of the floor. Across from the door was a counter where two men in work boots and heavy flannels sat on tall stools eating sausage and biscuits and talking with a skinny cook back in the kitchen. There was an order of bacon and hash browns up, and a waitress in jeans and a t-shirt snatched the plate on her way past.

"Have a seat, guys," she called, hustling to a table where an older man sat alone with a newspaper and cup of coffee.

"Actually, we're meeting somebody," Sam said.

At his words, a plump woman stood up from a table near the back. "Mr. Burns?" She smiled and waved them over. She looked disheveled, her purple cotton blouse rumpled and a dark stain near the pocket of her long denim skirt. There was a one-year-old attached to her hip and a toddler hiding under the table. Sam cringed when he heard the older child's head crack against the underside of the metal tabletop, and the family's breakfast dishes rattled.

"Oh, Roger," the woman sighed, as the child began to cry. "You're okay." She smiled apologetically up at Sam and Dean as they approached. "He's okay. He's got a really thick skull." She reached under the table, pulled Roger out by his wrist, and guided him into a chair. "Sit here," she instructed, flipping over the paper placemat and plunking down a handful of broken crayons.

The child scowled and glared up at the two brothers, folding his arms across his chest. Dean frowned back, then stuck out his tongue.

At that, Roger's eyes went wide, and he stopped crying and began to draw.

There was another person at the table, a high school-aged kid wearing khakis and a black T-shirt with "Wiffleball Champion" screen printed across the front in block letters. He was slumped down in his seat with a bored look on his face. He fiddled with a little tub of creamer.

"Thanks for meeting with us, Mrs. Wheeler," Sam said, pulling out a chair across from the kid. "I'm Sam, and this is Dean."

"Nice to meet you, boys. And it's not a problem." Mrs. Wheeler hitched the infant higher on her hip and then had a seat. She reached up with her free hand to self-consciously smooth her short, dishwater blonde hair. "When Jim told me you wanted to meet with us, I knew this was a really important opportunity. It's a really important story, and we're completely willing to help you with your research. The Mitchells are good friends of ours, and they're just devastated. It's so horrible. Maybe your film could help shed some light on what's happening to all these people."

"We hope so," Sam smiled sadly. "At this point, though, we're really just trying to understand exactly what's happening here."

Dean pulled a laminated menu from between the salt and pepper shakers and the glass ketchup bottle and began to peruse the options. He wondered what a dish called "Eggs in Hell" could possibly entail.

"What would you like to know?" Mrs. Wheeler asked.

Sam turned to Jim Wheeler, who hadn't even acknowledged them yet. "Jim, do you think you could tell us what you remember from that night?" he asked quietly.

Jim rolled his eyes and looked toward the window. He sighed. "We just snuck in for fun," he started, as if he'd told this story hundreds of times before. "Some of the guys at school kind of dared us to do it, said we couldn't make it through a night in there. We figured we'd just break into the front room and stay right by the door all night." He paused and cleared his throat. "But once we were in there, Mike wanted to look around."

"And what happened?"

"He went downstairs into the basement." Jim glanced over at Sam now, and the attitude faded from his features. He sat up slightly in his seat and looked down at the table. "But Mindy and I were too afraid to go with him." When he looked up again, there was guilt in his eyes and regret in his tone. "I swear, he couldn't have been down there longer than ten minutes. Then we heard him scream." He swallowed. "And he just never came back. We were too scared to go down to help him. We ran away and called the police."

Dean set down the menu and leaned forward. "Did you hear any strange noises? See anything out of the ordinary?"

Jim shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. Then he frowned.

"What is it?" Sam pressed.

Dean recognized the familiar timbre of Sam's voice in its 'persuasive encouragement' mode, that low, breathy quality that was so gut-wrenchingly Sam.

"Well," Jim continued hesitantly, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. "Before he screamed, I thought I heard him call up that he'd found something."

Sam was shaking his head slowly. "Do you know what he'd found?"

"No. I mean, I'm not even sure that's what he said."

The table fell silent. Dishes and silverware clinked softly around them. The men's voices drifted their way indistinctly from the counter. The waitress poured another cup of coffee and laughed at something the old man with the newspaper had said. A heavy drop of condensation was slowly making its way down a juice glass on the table, and Jim solemnly watched it slide.

Sam watched Jim; Dean watched Sam; and Mrs. Wheeler moved her eyes back and forth between all of them.

"What?" she asked, finally. "Is that significant?"

Sam turned to her and gave her another small smile. "Any information is helpful, Mrs. Wheeler."

The baby on Mrs. Wheeler's lap broke the tension by lightly slapping her mother across the face.

"Meredith!" Mrs. Wheeler scolded, grabbing the baby's chubby hand. She caught sight of her watch and stood abruptly. "Oh, hell's bells," she said, letting go of the baby's hand and gathering Roger's crayons. She shoved them into the diaper bag hanging from the back of her chair and then held Roger's little winter coat out for him with her free hand. "Jimmy, we've gotta get you to school, or you'll be late."

Sam stood and attempted to help her get everything together, but she appeared to have it under control and motioned for him to sit back down. She nudged Jim in the shoulder, and he turned to zip Roger's coat. Then he pulled his backpack from under the table and started to head for the door.

"Thank you again for your time," Sam said sincerely.

Mrs. Wheeler smiled at him, pulling the baby's hood over its tiny head. "Let us know if there's anything else we can do."

Sam nodded and watched them go.

The waitress approached their table. "You guys staying for breakfast?" she asked, turning their coffee cups and pouring from a fresh pot.

"Yeah," Dean piped up before Sam could say anything. "I'll take the Eggs in Hell."

"And for you, sweetie?" she asked, looking at Sam.

"Um…toast is fine."

"Just give him the same," Dean interjected, standing and moving to the other side of the table.

The waitress nodded. She picked up a few of the Wheelers' empty plates and carried them off to the kitchen.

"You know, you never ate last night," Dean said, pushing Jimmy's orange juice aside.

"Thanks for noticing, mom."

Dean shrugged. "Whatever, man. I'm just saying."

Just then the door swung open again. Mrs. Wheeler propped it open with her hip, and a small body slipped past her back into the restaurant. "Hurry, Roger," she said. "We have to get going."

Roger toddled his way back to their table and wordlessly pushed his placemat into Sam's hands.

"He wanted you two to have it," Mrs. Wheeler explained from the door.

Sam looked down at the picture and had to swallow a laugh. It was a stick person with a red-line smile and spiky yellow hair. Its eyes were green dots, and it appeared to have on enormous, brown, stick boots about the same size as its head.

"Wow," Sam marveled a little unconvincingly. His eyebrows disappeared up under his heavy bangs, and the smile on his face looked more painful than truly impressed, although Dean had to admit it was a valiant effort. "It's…" He turned the picture around so Dean could see. "It's really _pretty_! Isn't it, Dean?"

"Pretty ugly," Dean muttered under his breath before taking a sip of his coffee. He choked as Sam kicked his shin under the table.

"It's great, Roger," Sam said, turning back to the little boy. He smiled gently. "Thank you."

Roger grinned and took off for the door.

"Well, it is," Dean shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "Ugly, I mean. Seriously. Even for a kid."

"No, no, you're right," Sam agreed, picking the picture back up and examining it at arm's length. He smiled. "You do realize it's you, right?"

Dean snatched the picture from Sam's hands and studied it for a moment. "Well, I guess he got one thing right."

Sam waited, his eyes bright, and his lips curled up in the faintest of smiles.

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "You know what they say about guys with big feet."

Sam laughed out loud.

* * *

_Okay, okay. Not a whole lot of plot development that time around. But the next chapter promises to up the angst-ante a bit. :)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Standard Disclaimer**: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post this chapter. I really struggled with it (I'm talking wrote and rewrote the whole diner part at least ten times), and I hope that fact isn't too terribly apparent. I guess I'll just let the chapter speak for itself and hope you're not disappointed.

* * *

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

**_Previously..._**

_Dean cocked an eyebrow. "You know what they say about guys with big feet."_

_Sam laughed out loud._

Part IV

The sun had begun to rise, but the thick cloud cover had muted its rays to a dull gray haze. A long, white '97 Cadillac DeVille moved slowly down the slick street, splashing sludge against the curb as it hit a pothole. The car drove on, and the puddle settled, and Grant was abnormally still once again. Even during what should have been the morning rush, the town seemed to be all but deserted.

"So now what?" Sam slouched down in his seat and drummed his fingertips somewhat impatiently against the table top. The look on his face was a mix of boredom and exasperation as he watched Dean's studious attempts to balance the salt shaker on edge against a tiny pile of spilled salt.

Dean was bent down low towards the table and didn't look up to respond. "Well, we now know that whatever it was Mike Mitchell found down in that basement, something didn't like him having it."

"Right," Sam agreed. "And I take it we're in agreement that whatever is abducting these people and whatever chased us down by that lake, is some kind of supernatural manifestation of one of the McCrays."

"Yes, Sam. I think that's a safe – " Dean spared his brother a quick glance. " – albeit wordy – assumption. Problem is, I searched for hours last night, and I never did find anything on the McCrays."

Sam's drumming turned into an annoyed rapping of his knuckles. "So what do you suggest? We don't exactly have a whole lot of useful information to work with here."

"I don't know," Dean answered distractedly. "What do _you_ suggest?"

Dean slowly pulled both hands back, and the salt shaker maintained its precarious angle. He held his breath for a moment and was just starting to smile triumphantly when Sam slammed a clenched fist down on the table. The shaker teetered for a split second before tipping over onto its side and starting to roll. Its tapered shape caused the little jar to arch its way back towards Sam, who caught it and set it down firmly, just far enough on his side of the table to be out of Dean's reach.

Dean looked at Sam's hand wrapped tightly around the glass container. Then his eyes lifted to meet his brother's irritated glare.

"Dude, you are such a dick."

Sam loosed his grip on the shaker. "Can we please just try to focus here?" he sighed, resting both elbows on the table and rubbing his hands over his face.

"I _was_ focused."

Sam snorted and looked at his brother through splayed fingers. "On the McCrays, Dean. You know, abandoned house…missing people…the whole reason you dragged me here in the first place?"

Dean pinched a bit of salt between his fingers and tossed it over his shoulder.

Sam shook his head and slouched in his chair again. Long fingers found his wadded napkin and squeezed it absently, his eyes moving to the diner window. Dean followed his gaze, trying to see whatever it was his brother was seeing, not at all sure that he ever could.

"Something happened to them that drove them apart," Sam declared suddenly, his voice taking on a tone of unfounded certainty that caused Dean to go tense.

"What makes you say that?" he asked quietly, looking closely at Sam's face. That fall through the ice had been traumatic, and even though Sam acted as if it had never happened, every once in a while that morning, Dean had seen him shiver, as if he was still cold. His skin still hadn't fully regained its color.

"Think about it, Dean. The AP report said all the victims had some kind of tragic family background. That's not a coincidence."

"'Tragedy' always has a nice ring to it when it comes to news reports, Sam," Dean pointed out. "It could mean anything. Or nothing."

"It obviously means something. You said so yourself before we even got here," Sam argued, a little too forcefully. "I don't know, man. I just have this feeling it's something they have in common with their victims." The look on his face when he turned back to his brother conveyed an intense regret and empathy that Dean would have given anything to erase.

"It just doesn't make any sense," Sam continued earnestly. "No police records. No local newspaper reports." He shook his head and stabbed a bit of cold egg with his fork. He made no move to eat it, just pushed it around the plate. "I mean, a town this size, and you're going to tell me _nobody_ knows what happened to the McCrays?

Dean shrugged and blew out a short puff of air. "Look, we'll figure it out, okay? Why don't you and your third eye over there just chill out for a second?"

A pathetic snow had begun to fall. The tiny little flakes drifted down and stuck to the frozen street and sidewalk. From where they sat, Sam could see a dusting of white beginning to obscure the Impala's windshield.

"They were a family, Dean. A whole family." Sam frowned, and his brow creased as he flexed and relaxed his fingers around the napkin. "How does a community let an entire family just fade into obscurity like that? The only proof they actually existed is that deserted farm."

Dean finished off his coffee and sat back in his seat. "All right. Before we can figure out how to get rid of this thing, we're going to need more information."

"Good call, Mr. Obvious. Where do you suggest we find it?"

"Well, we're probably not going to find it sitting here on our asses, now are we?"

They'd been there for forty-five minutes, but business never did pick up at the Eat Here and Get Gas diner. Their waitress had been to the table to ask if they needed refills five times since she'd poured the first cup. The sixth time she approached, she set their bill down next to Dean's empty plate.

"No rush, guys," she said with a discouraged smile. "You can see we're not exactly being mobbed for the next available table."

After downing his Eggs in Hell, Dean could hazard a guess why. But he surmised the lull in patronage had more to do with the fear and uncertainty that had gripped the town than it did with the diner's questionable fare.

"You want me to box that up for you?" the waitress asked, motioning with the half-empty coffee pot to Sam's untouched eggs.

"No, thanks," he said, sitting up straight and pushing the plate aside.

She smiled again briefly as she carried their dishes away. Sam's own small smile faded when he looked over and saw Dean staring him down incriminatingly.

"What?"

Dean reached into his pocket for his wallet. "It's just…" he shrugged, "I'm concerned is all."

Sam cocked one eyebrow and frowned. "Concerned about what?"

Dean fixed him with a sad look. "All those starving little kids in China, man."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Look, I asked for toast. I ate the toast. The rest was your idea."

"Yeah, yeah. Well, don't come crying to…" He pulled out a credit card and glanced at the name. "…Akshaya Sabbaghi when you're passing out from malnutrition." He stood, grabbed his coat off the back of his chair, and headed up to the cash register.

Sam followed, zipping his jacket.

The waitress joined them at the register and ran the card through the reader without question. She tore the receipt off the tape and handed it over along with a pen, tapped her index finger on the counter as Dean struggled to remember how to spell Akshaya. Then she glanced over at Sam, who gave her a tight smile, his hands in his jacket pockets.

"You're awfully cute," she said suddenly, her eyes on Sam.

Sam's eyebrows shot up, and Dean mangled the last few letters of his purloined last name.

There was an awkward silence, during which Sam wasn't sure what to say.

"You'll have to excuse him," Dean smiled. "First day with the new tongue and all."

The waitress took Dean's proffered receipt and put it into the drawer. Then she closed the register with a soft click.

"That's okay," she said, not in the least bit embarrassed. "You guys obviously aren't from around here."

"No, we're not," Dean answered. "Actually, we're film students up from Colorado State."

"Really?" She turned to Dean. "I didn't realize CSU had a film school."

Dean just kept smiling. "It's a really new program."

She nodded skeptically, then looked at Sam again. "My name's Lucy."

Sam just stood there, an uncomfortable smile plastered across his face. Another brief silence, and Dean nudged him in the elbow. "Oh. Right. I'm Sam. And this is..." Sam glanced sideways at his brother.

"Akshaya," Dean supplied, flashing his credit card at the waitress and then putting it back into his wallet. His cheeks were starting to hurt from his perma-grin.

Lucy was gracious enough to at least pretend she was buying it. "Well, Sam...Akshaya...I feel like I should tell you something."

Sam cocked his head slightly, not sure he wanted to know where this was going. "What's that?"

"I couldn't help but overhear you guys talking after the Wheeler kid left," she said, leaning forward and folding her arms on the counter. "About your film?"

Sam nodded.

"Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that McCray story people tell around town, it's 100 percent fiction. It's just a myth."

"Are you sure?" Sam asked at the same time Dean demanded, "How do you know?"

Dishes clattered in the background, and the skinny cook poked his head out from the kitchen. The waitress picked up a dishtowel and began to wipe down the counter.

"Please," she said, wiping slowly, still looking at Sam. "I was Jimmy's age once. Seems like every year some group of kids gets the idea that they're going to find something out about the McCrays. Thing is, you can research all you want. There's no record of any family named McCray ever having lived in Grant. But it sure makes for an interesting story, doesn't it?"

Dean frowned. "Then what's the deal with the farm? _Somebody_ lived there."

She shrugged. "No clue. But if you're still wanting to explore the McCray angle…you know, for the sake of your film…I know someone you should talk to."

"Who?"

"Her name's Iona Rothschild." She stopped wiping and leaned towards them again. "You're not gonna believe this, but she's the local _psychic_. Priceless, huh?"

Dean stole a glance at his brother, whose young features showed no reaction other than cautious curiosity. "Where can we find her?" he asked quietly.

"She used to do readings out of a little hole in the wall down on Merrifield, but I don't think anyone's been to see her in years. People say she's more psycho than psychic, if you know what I mean. Now she just lives there in the back rooms. She's like a recluse or something. But she used to go around swearing up and down that the McCrays really existed."

"A crazy recluse, huh?" Dean mused, casting a significant look at Sam, who shrugged.

"Sounds like our kind of lady."

Dean turned back to the waitress and smiled again. "Thanks for the information."

**:  
**

"Dude, that chick totally wanted you, and you gave her the Heisman." He shook his head solemnly. "Sometimes I think you might be adopted."

Sam snorted and pulled open the passenger side door. "I don't know if this occurred to you, Dean, but we're kind of in the middle of something here. Not to mention that woman was a complete stranger."

"No, I know. I'm just saying." He smiled devilishly and waggled his eyebrows. "She just looked like she might be one of those girls who can spontaneously dislocate her jaw, that's all."

Sam stared incredulously at his brother over the roof of the car. "Seriously. Do you even listen to yourself?"

Dean slid behind the wheel and keyed the ignition. "I wouldn't have minded driving around the block a few times while you taxed that ass. You're my brother, so I'm willing to make those kinds of sacrifices for you. Besides, how long could it have possibly taken? What? Like four, five minutes?"

Sam rolled his eyes and sank into the passenger's seat, pulling the door shut. He propped his elbow against the slightly drafty spot where the door met the window and leaned an aching head against his fist. He closed his eyes. They'd been in Grant for less than twenty-four hours, but he already felt like this job would never end.

Dean flipped the wipers on high and cranked up the front defrost in a lazy effort to clear the windshield. Luckily, the new snow was like powder and easily brushed off the glass.

The rear tires spun wildly as Dean attempted the turn out of the parking lot, and they'd dug a couple pretty decent holes in the snow before the tread finally caught and they were on their way to find Iona Rothschild. Dean gunned the engine and playfully spun the steering wheel back and forth a few times, causing the sedan to fishtail for about twenty yards down the center of the empty street.

Dean tossed his brother a wicked grin, which Sam didn't return. Instead, he kept his eyes closed, and his left arm snaked gingerly around his stomach.

"Hey," Dean said, easing up on the gas and the antics. "What's the matter with you?"

Sam didn't move. "Nothing a little Dramamine won't take care of," he muttered humorlessly.

Dean eyed his brother and noticed the tiny bit of moisture that dampened his sideburns and the hair at the back of his neck. He reached over and turned down the heat, even though the air in the car was far from being warm yet.

"Yeah, well, help me keep an eye out for this place, would you?"

Sam still didn't change his position against the door, but he forced his eyes open and watched the storefronts go by.

Merrifield was once a well-traveled road that ran for five blocks perpendicular to the main street through town and dead-ended at a chain link fence surrounding an old, rundown drag strip. A dirty plastic banner advertising a long-past demolition derby hung along the fence and rippled softly in the frigid wind.

The storefronts lining the sidewalk looked eerily desolate and portentous on this gloomy morning. Among the small, single-story shops was an old beauty parlor, a cleaner's, a dollar store, and a florist. The spaces between buildings were empty alleyways where faded brown dumpsters sat collecting the discarded remnants of every day life in Grant.

"Jeez, this whole town is a fucking dump," Dean observed bluntly, scanning the windows for some sign of the psychic's shop.

Along the opposite side of the road was a sporadic row of little houses with grimy siding and a handful of old beater cars parked out front. In one yard, a big, dirty German shepherd followed the Impala's slow motion down the length of its chain link dog run, its teeth bared in what looked like a fierce growl.

"There it is," Sam said quietly, and Dean leaned forward to follow his gaze through the windshield.

It was tucked between the remains of an out-of-business shoe repair shop and another empty store with a _For Sale or Lease_ sign posted in the window. It was indeed almost a literal hole in the red brick wall. The door was set back from the façade of the building in a narrow alcove, and there were dingy, white, vinyl roller shades drawn over the windows so it was impossible to see inside. There was what looked to be a hand-painted wooden sign in one corner of the window between the glass and the shade: _Psychic Readings by Lady Iona of the Inner Circle_. The paint was cracked and faded.

They sat in the car for a moment just staring out at the ugly little shop, which actually looked every bit as deserted as the McCray farm. Then Dean killed the engine, and everything was quiet. The dog's muffled bark could be heard in the distance. The snow was turning into little pieces of ice that _tap-tap-tapped_ insistently against the windows.

"You up for this?" Dean asked, trying to keep a measured amount of nonchalance in his voice.

Sam looked over at him. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" he replied, trying to keep a measured amount of indifference in his.

Dean didn't press the issue. He got out of the car and stepped over a low snow bank to get to the sidewalk directly in front of Iona's shop.

He heard Sam's door slam and then, "Do you think she'll even talk to us?" as Sam stepped up behind him.

He shrugged. There was only one way to find out. He went to the door and gave the handle a good tug. It didn't budge, so he thumped several times against the glass and stood back.

"Dude, we gotta think up a good psychic handle for you," he said over his shoulder as they waited.

Sam gave him a pettish look. "Why would we need to do that?"

"Look, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but Sam Winchester just doesn't have the same kind of ring to it as that." He indicated the sign in the window, then pounded on the door again, a little harder. "Besides, don't you want to follow the protocol of your psychic kinsfolk? Your brethren?"

"Dean, you're my only brethren, and I'm having a hard enough time trying to _dis_associate myself from you."

"Ooo, how about Lady Samuel, Mistress of the Night?"

Sam pressed his lips into a thin line. "You are so fucking obnoxious."

Dean had just raised his fist to knock again when they heard a rough _scrape-click_ as the deadbolt slid open. The door slowly opened out into the alcove, and Dean had to step back to avoid being pinned between it and the brick wall.

A withered hand pressed against the glass, holding the door ajar. The body it was connected to was clad in a long, wine-colored linen dress, much too light for the Nebraska winter. Iona Rothschild was thin, tall, and brittle-looking. Her fingers were slender, but her arthritic knuckles were enlarged and deformed. Her gray hair was thick, though dull and greasy. It hung limply past her shoulders and clear down her back. The skin on her face was wrinkled and marked with age spots, and her lips were so thin they were practically nonexistent. She looked out at them with small, suspicious brown eyes.

"You've come," she said, pulling a flimsy, black knit shawl up tighter around her shoulders. Her voice was so low and raspy it was almost masculine. "I've been waiting for you." She motioned them in with a slight tilt of her head.

Dean glanced at Sam, whose expression was unreadable. He would've liked to have known what his brother was thinking just then. Despite Sam's burgeoning abilities, their experiences with Missouri Mosely, and the improbable situations they found themselves facing every day, Dean still considered himself a bit of a skeptic when it came to people who claimed to possess psychic powers. Maybe it was because he understood how real the realm of the supernatural was, and there were just too many people out there ignorantly exploiting what they didn't even remotely understand.

Sam seemed to hesitate, so Dean stepped in first. The air was warm and heavy, and it reeked of sandalwood incense and mold. The room was small and cluttered. There was a filthy Oriental rug in the middle of the floor, at the center of which stood a small round table with four stools around it. A long runner hung across and over the edges of the table, the fringed edges coming close to touching the floor. A fat candle burned surprisingly bright on the table, and its flame bobbed and swayed as the cold, outside air moved in around it. The floor beyond the rug was littered with piles of old newspapers, photos, and books. There were shelves along the full length of one wall, and on them sat sundry jars, boxes, and bowls brimming with all sorts of mysterious contents.

Dean felt Sam's shoulder brush his and heard the door close behind them. The blinds squelched all daylight from the small room, and it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

"They sent you to me to learn more about the McCrays," the woman said. She slowly moved past them towards an old wooden rocking chair that sat in a far corner opposite the door. She put both hands on the armrests and lowered herself down onto the chair. "Come here," she ordered. "Sit."

The brothers glanced at each other before approaching the corner. They each grabbed a stool from around the table and pulled them up in front of the old woman. It was as if they were children, and she was about to read them a fairy tale.

"You've seen her," she asked, although it sounded more like a statement than a question.

She was looking at Sam, but Dean answered. "Seen who?"

She turned to Dean momentarily, then spoke to Sam again. "My neighbors, who've lived in this town as long as I, choose to deny those unseemly past occurrences which might tarnish our town's positive reputation. But their denial doesn't make the McCrays any less real, or their story any less appalling. And despite our children's ignorance of those events, just look at our reputation now."

"Tell us the story," Sam requested quietly.

She leaned back in the chair and started to rock. "They were a mother, a father, and a young daughter. The farm had once belonged to the mother's family, and they were as prosperous as anyone else in town could be back in those days.

"But love changes, and people stray. Mrs. McCray discovered her husband was having an affair with another woman. It was a scandal that the family didn't want spreading around town. Mrs. McCray especially was loath that anyone should find out.

"So the discord between them festered, but they kept up appearances. Until one day Mr. McCray just stopped coming into town. He didn't socialize, didn't keep his business appointments; Mrs. McCray attended to matters concerning the farm. The farm itself began to go into decline. To the people who noticed, it seemed like the daughter was forced to do all the work in the fields.

"She was an ugly, miserable girl. Hateful." Iona made a face as if there were something distasteful in her mouth. "So despicable was she, that she actually fought with her mother one day in the middle of town. They raised their voices to one another, something about Mr. McCray and whose fault was it he was gone. But it ended with the daughter climbing into the cab of the truck, and Mrs. McCray driving them away."

She closed her eyes and rocked slowly, her chair creaking softly against the hardwood floor.

Dean lifted an eyebrow and looked over at Sam, who looked just as confused as he. Dean cleared his throat. "And?" he prompted, his voice sounding too loud in the darkness.

The woman's eyes snapped open again, and they were startlingly bright. She fixed Sam with a stare that was accusatory, almost angry in its intensity.

"And that is where she ended the story and the existence of the McCrays," she said. "Since her revenge, the house has sat empty for all these years, deteriorating to the state you find it in now."

"But what happened to them?" Sam asked, struggling to make sense of the disjointed and cryptic story.

"Rain," the woman answered. "It was rain."

What little color remained after his experience in the lake quickly drained from Sam's face and neck, and he felt the cold prickle of goosebumps breaking out on his skin.

"Come closer," the woman beckoned him harshly.

Dean tensed as he watched Sam reluctantly lean forward. There was a disconcerting look of resigned acceptance on Sam's face, like someone who had committed a crime he knew he would never get away with, and the authorities had just come knocking at his door.

Dean reached out a hand and placed it lightly on Sam's back, although he wasn't exactly sure what he was trying to convey with the touch. He mostly just felt like he needed to remind Sam that he was there, because his brother suddenly looked very young and very alone. Beneath his fingers, he could feel Sam trembling, and the sensation startled him.

"I know what you've done to your own family." The woman leaned in too close, invading Sam's personal space. She eyed him with an air of judgmental superiority. "You've felt it ever since you came to Grant, haven't you? Oh, it's a terrible feeling. Sickening. When the sins of those you hunt so closely echo the sins you've committed yourself." Her next words were like ice cold steel slicing into his chest. "You seek normalcy, safety, respite from a turbulent existence. But do you honestly believe anything good can come to a boy who brought death to his own mother? Child, instead of bothering the people of this town, you should be preparing yourself to burn in hell."

The look of stunned disbelief on Dean's face morphed almost instantly into one of rage. He sat motionless more out of shock than restraint as the old woman stared them down. They'd run into plenty of ugly and foul things before in their lives, but this woman and her scathing comments might just take the cake. And there was Sam, looking for all the world like a kid who'd been slapped in the face by a trusted adult. Make that punched in the gut.

"What did you just say to him?" Dean asked, his voice low and menacing. Surely even Dean had his limits, but at that moment he was not above kicking the shit out of an old lady.

The woman frowned at them both. Her eyes were so old, and yet so sharp. Sam found her gaze to be almost painful. He felt slightly panicked, like a cold mass had settled between his stomach and chest, and it began to press harder and harder. He shifted his weight in discomfort, worried now that Dean had asked, that the woman might actually repeat herself.

Instead, she leaned back in the chair and started rocking again. Every move she made, even that of her toe pushing off against the floor, was slow. Sam felt like they were sitting underwater. And he was starting to suffocate.

Next to him, Dean did not appear to be so affected. In fact, Dean seemed to be gearing up for something. Sam brought up a shaky hand, hoping to stop Dean from doing or saying whatever he was getting ready to do or say. Silently, but desperately, he willed his brother to just shut the hell up so they could get out of there and never have to go back.

But Dean was not to be so easily deterred. Before Sam had a chance to react, Dean was on his feet. He brought both hands down on either side of the rocking chair, gripping the arms and bringing the woman's rocking to an abrupt stop.

"You filthy bitch," Dean ground out through clenched teeth. In his own mind, Dean wasn't sure what he was about to do, and the woman stared up at him with that same biting look in her eyes.

"Dean."

It only vaguely registered in Dean's mind that his brother was calling him.

The woman kept looking into Dean's eyes, leaned forward a little in her seat, froze him like that, like if she wanted she could hold him there forever. Then slowly, she leaned back.

"Sooner or later, you _will_ lose him," she said, her eyes eerily dulling a shade.

Dean pulled his hands back quickly, as if he'd been burned, and the release of pressure sent the chair rocking slightly again. Confused, Dean backed away from the woman and, without breaking eye contact with her, grabbed Sam by his sleeve and man-handled him across the small room. All 6'4" of Sam seemed a little too easy to shove towards the front door. Something told Dean he had to get them both out of there now.

After they stepped out of the shop, Dean finally turned and steered Sam toward the car, giving him another prod. He didn't think he'd pushed that hard, but Sam stumbled a little against the car door. His fingers shook as he pulled on the door handle.

Neither brother spoke until they'd driven for about a block, when Dean said, "Well, she was a bitch."

Sam watched the shop moving farther away in the passenger side mirror. No shit she was a bitch. And as long as they were stating the obvious, "She knew about mom."

Sam half expected Dean to make a huge production of rolling his eyes and possibly even pulling over the car to tell Sam how ridiculous he was being to even consider the woman had any idea what she was talking about.

But at first Dean didn't say anything or respond at all. He just clenched his jaw muscle and kept staring out at the road. He seemed to be trying to figure out what to say, and the hesitation caused the weight on Sam's chest and stomach to tighten. It was starting to feel like a vice gripping his insides, and he had to close his eyes for a moment. He felt nauseous, and suddenly hot. Every lurch of the car on the old stretch of road only further aggravated the slow throbbing in his head.

Dean _was_ choosing his words carefully. What that witch back there had said had been meant to inflict pain, and from the looks of Sam, it had worked. He decided to just focus on getting this job done and leaving Grant as soon as possible.

"So they existed," Dean stated grimly. "And family dinners were a little tense. We still don't know what happened to them."

"Dean, I need you to stop," Sam said through clenched teeth. He was holding it together as best he could, but he was obviously distressed.

Dean mistook the urgency in Sam's voice for reluctance to continue this hunt, although he should have known better than to think his brother would back down just because of something some crazy old woman had said.

"Look, we'll go back to the house tonight and just set the whole fucking thing on fire. It may not destroy the spirits, but at least it'll keep anyone else from going in there."

"No, Dean," Sam interrupted. "Please. _Stop_."

Dean finally looked over at the passenger seat. What he saw caused him to slam on the breaks. Sam's skin had taken on a gray, almost transparent pallor, and several pieces of his long bangs were plastered to his forehead with sweat. His left arm was wrapped around his stomach, and his right hand was already on the door handle.

The car had barely come to a halt on the side of the road before Sam was tumbling out the door and onto his knees in the three inches of snow along the sidewalk.

"Sam!"

Dean was around the car in a matter of seconds. Putting one hand on Sam's shoulder, Dean cupped the back of his neck with the other and searched his brother's face. There was panic there, but Dean wasn't sure exactly which part of this whole mess Sam was presently panicking about. So he took a guess.

"Look, Sam, what that bitch said back there – "

"I heard what she said, Dean." Sam closed his eyes and tried to steady himself. Dean's hold on his shoulder was firm, and he tried to anchor himself to that. Tried to anchor himself to Dean. "It was complete bullshit, okay?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, of course," Dean stammered. "I just – "

"Can you please just let it go?" Sam implored. "Please?"

But Dean didn't want to let it go. "Sam," he said forcing as much authority as he could into his voice. He wished his brother would at least look at him. "What happened to our family…. It wasn't you, okay?"

"Then what was it?" Dean had expected to hear anger in Sam's voice, not raw desperation. But that was what was there, and it broke his heart.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I refuse to believe it has anything to do with you."

"Then you're an idiot. And you're deluding yourself."

Dean didn't respond to that. He knew Sam was in no state of mind to listen to him anyway. So instead, he sighed deeply, rested his forehead against the hand on Sam's shoulder. He could feel Sam still shaking, but he felt helpless to do anything about it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Standard Disclaimer**: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

**Author's Note:** Okay, this chapter is very short, and I apologize. I just felt really bad that it's taking me so long to update, and I wanted to at least prove that I've been thinking about where this is all going and working on it. This chapter is just a bit of fluff, really. Trying my hand at a bit of angst, at which I am admittedly terrible! I'd like to wrap this puppy up before the season finale comes and throws us all for a loop, but I'm not sure that's gonna happen. I'm thinking about two or three more chapters after this. Thanks for your indulgence. Your reviews are so appreciated. :)

* * *

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

**_Previously..._**

_"What happened to our family…. It wasn't you, okay?"_

_"Then what was it?" Dean had expected to hear anger in Sam's voice, not raw desperation. But that was what was there, and it broke his heart._

_"I don't know," he admitted. "But I refuse to believe it has anything to do with you."_

_"Then you're an idiot. And you're deluding yourself."_

_Dean didn't respond to that. He knew Sam was in no state of mind to listen to him anyway. So instead, he sighed deeply, rested his forehead against the hand on Sam's shoulder. He could feel Sam still shaking, but he felt helpless to do anything about it._

Part V

The air was crisp and quiet as only winter air could be, and the cold wind blew intermittently from the north. At one point it stirred the rusted, metal tubes of a wind chime somewhere down the street. It had stopped snowing, but the sky was still a dismal gray, and gusts of wind sent small tornadoes of snow drifting against the building next to them, up against the curb, around the Impala's tires.

Grant, and their business there, got uglier with every passing minute.

He wasn't sure how long they'd been sitting there, but Dean was cold, his pants were wet, and his ass was definitely asleep. He sat uncomfortably on the sidewalk, where no one had bothered to shovel, with his legs drawn up and his elbows resting on his knees. He held one index finger loosely in the other hand; examined a fingernail; glanced up at the flat gray clouds that didn't actually look like clouds but the sky itself, turned old, dull, and colorless in its most depressing of seasons.

Sam sat cross-legged in front of him. He was bent forward with elbows resting on his knees and forehead in his palms. Drifting snow had settled and crystallized atop messy, brown hair, the heat from his head and the harsh chill of the air causing the tiny flakes to seemingly waver somewhere between droplets and ice. He looked brittle, like Dean could reach over and touch him, and he might just shatter right there into a million pieces along the street. So Dean kept his hands to himself and waited.

In their mutual haste to exit the car, both brothers had left the front doors open. The warning bell that signaled Dean had left the keys in the ignition droned on and on and on.

Sam was numb. And it felt…well…not _good_, but manageable. He sensed his brother's tension and was aware of Dean's concerted effort not to watch him, not to speak, not to open that can of worms. He knew it was taking all of Dean's self-control to just keep still; Dean had never been one for inaction. Sam was just beginning to really appreciate the effort Dean was putting forth when his irreverent voice broke the silence.

"So…what's all this I hear about global warming?"

Sam lifted his head, and his cheeks and nose were rosy from the cold. He almost looked like a little kid who'd been out building snowmen and making snow angels in the yard.

He looked across at his brother, who smiled toothily. Sam didn't smile back. Instead, his eyes narrowed, and he looked at Dean closely. Seriously. And all of a sudden, he didn't look so young anymore. He looked weary, and Dean's smile faltered.

"No, really. I hear things are…like…melting."

Sam continued staring at him, and now Dean started to frown.

"Apparently it hasn't reached Nebraska yet," he muttered, scratching at the back of his neck self-consciously. "Despite all the methane gas." He tried one more small smile. "You know…all the cows and – " Sam was clearly not amused, so Dean stopped trying.

They stared at each other for a moment in silence. Then Sam spoke.

"Dean, I need you to promise me something."

Sometimes there was a quality to Sam's voice that spoke of such innocence, and youth, and vulnerability. And even though it was painfully apparent to Dean that his little brother had never been innocent in his life, he would always be young and vulnerable in Dean's eyes, and that tone of voice got to him every time. It wasn't something that Sam consciously did. In fact, if Sam knew the kinds of emotion that tone dredged up, Dean was sure he would end up doing everything in his power to suppress it.

"All right," Dean agreed warily, aware that he wasn't exactly sure what he was about to promise. "What?"

Sam looked at him with hard, haunted eyes that actually made Dean shiver. "One day, I'm going to do something you're not going to like – "

"One day?" Dean smiled nervously. "Dude, that's like every day already."

Sam's intensity didn't waver. In fact, if it was possible, it seemed to heighten. "When it happens, Dean…you can't try to stop me."

Dean still didn't really know what his brother was saying, but he didn't like the sound of it, and he had a feeling it had nothing to do with Grant, Nebraska, or the McCrays. He shook his head. "I'm not going to promise that."

"But Dean – "

"But Dean nothing."

Sam was still looking at him, and something in his eyes caused Dean an inexplicable, physical pain. He unconsciously brought a hand up to rub slowly at a hollow ache in his chest.

"I'm just saying, maybe you're right, man. That this isn't about me. It's bigger than that. It's bigger than all of us. So I just need you to know, whatever happens to me…it's supposed to, okay?"

One of Dean's scariest theories, one he could never tell Sam, was that Sam was dying, and the lethal dose of whatever was killing him had been given to him twenty-two years ago, the night their mother had died. And each new manifestation of Sam's so-called abilities, each supernatural foe they faced, each brush with danger, was really a new symptom that would bring him closer to his cruel fate. As much as he'd thought about it, Dean couldn't actually say for sure just _how_ Sam would go; Dean just knew that he was going and would eventually be gone. But something in the way Sam looked at him then – the urgency, the sadness, the defeated slump of his shoulders – caused Dean to wonder if maybe, at some point, Sam himself had somehow figured out exactly how it would all go down.

Sam kept watching his expression earnestly, and Dean understood Sam was using Dean's love and willingness to do anything for his little brother against him. He was being manipulated, and it both hurt and pissed him off in a way he hadn't experienced before. The Impala's warning bell chimed in time with the steady pound of his heart.

"Don't say shit like that, Sammy," he said firmly. "Seriously. _Jesus_. You know, sometimes I think you're fucking nuts."

"Look, I know you think I'm selfish," Sam continued, heedless of his brother's visible discomfort. "So for all the times I've failed you…all of you…for all the decisions I've made…"

Dean rolled his eyes dramatically as comprehension dawned. "Oh, God. Is this what all this freeze our asses off and look like idiots sitting in the snow is all about? This is why you're asking me to make some fucked-up promise to let you commit some undisclosed future act of insanity?"

Now it was Sam's turn to roll his eyes and invoke a higher being. "God – Dean – could you please, for once, not do this? I just…I need you to not belittle this, okay? I need you to look at me and…just promise me. Please."

"I don't care what you think you need, Sam. I'm not going to make any empty promises I have no intention of keeping." He clenched his fists in frustration and leaned forward, held his brother's gaze. "So what, you're trying to atone for something? Something that isn't even your fault, by the way. You think doing something stupid will somehow change things?"

"Please, Dean. I…I just…" His voice trailed off, and Sam seemed to…deflate.

The intensity vanished, almost as if they'd never broached the conversation at all. It was as if a switch had been flipped, and now they were back to a reality Dean was a lot more comfortable with. One where he and his brother went about their business dispelling evil, and Sam, for the most part, went along with the plan, whatever would keep them both alive another day.

The wind picked up again, and larger, heavier snowflakes began to tumble towards the ground. The sky looked thick and close. Almost within reach.

"Can we just get back to figuring this McCray shit out?" Dean grumbled, getting to his feet. He looked down at his wet jeans and then incriminatingly at his brother.

Sam sighed and stood. A wet snowflake landed on his cheek, but didn't melt. He wiped it away.

"Should we go back to the farm?"

Dean shook his head. "That bitch, Iona, said something about rain. Did you catch that?"

Sam nodded stiffly. "Yeah, I did," he breathed.

"Okay, so let's start there. Maybe it's some kind of hint or clue or whatever. Let's see what we can dig up about any unusual storms, floods, droughts, whatever you can think of that has something to do with rain."

Sam nodded again. "I'm not sure that's what she was talking about," he said. The memory of those hands in the lake sent a shiver down his spine.

"Well, I'm open to suggestions. What the hell else do you think it meant?"

"I don't know."

Dean watched him for a beat, but Sam wasn't looking at him. Dean wasn't sure _what_ Sam was looking at, and it struck him again that he may never be able to see the things his brother saw or understand them the way he did. He didn't think anyone could; not him, not their father. In that sense, he knew Sam lived an isolated existence, and that thought made him incredibly sad.

"So, like I said." His voice was almost gentle, but Sam didn't notice. "Storms, floods, droughts. Let's get on it."

Sam made a move to slide into the passenger seat, but Dean stopped him with a hand to his sleeve.

"Whoa, wait a minute, Sponge Bob. Just hang on a second." He opened the back door and pulled a thin travel blanket off the floor behind the driver's seat. He folded it once and then laid it across the leather bench.

Sam watched his brother move around to the other side of the car and carefully situate himself behind the wheel. "You are fucking amazing," he muttered.

Dean flashed him a wide grin. "Tell me about it."


	6. Chapter 6

**Standard Disclaimer**: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

* * *

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

**_Previously..._**

_Sam watched his brother move around to the other side of the car and carefully situate himself behind the wheel. "You are fucking amazing," he muttered. _

_Dean flashed him a wide grin. "Tell me about it." _

Part VI

The bottom of the laptop was growing uncomfortably warm through the coarse fabric of Dean's torn blue jeans. His legs were stretched out in front of him on the bed, and he leaned against the wall with a pillow tucked behind his back.

He'd been searching the Nebraska Health and Human Services death records for the past forty-five minutes and had been looking up floods and droughts for half an hour prior to that. There had been deadly floods in Nebraska in 1908, 1935, and 1943, but none of those had been anywhere near Grant, and none of the victims' names was McCray. Then there was the Dust Bowl in the '30s and a five-year drought in the '50s that affected the entire plains area, but searching through so many years of obits and death records was proving to be a complete pain in the ass.

They'd never drawn the hotel curtains that morning, and they remained closed now. The room was gloomy, bathed in dim, artificial light from the bedside lamps that jutted out from the wall. It was after noon, and any of the motel's other guests would have either already checked out or had yet to arrive, so it was quiet across the entire complex. The Impala sat impassively out in the parking lot collecting snowflakes and ice. The only other vehicle on the property was an old, beat-up Ford Taurus with faded blue paint and large patches of rust on the bumpers and around all four wheel wells; it belonged to the front desk clerk and had been there since at least the night before.

Dean paused a moment to flex his fingers and rest his eyes. He moved the computer off his legs, perched it a little precariously atop a mess of jumbled floral bedspread, and brought his legs over the edge of the bed with the thought of stealing a buck out of Sam's wallet and running out to the machine to buy himself a bottle of Mountain Dew.

Instead, he just sat there, leaning forward slightly with his hands pressed into the mattress on either side of his thighs. He was inches from where his brother lay on the opposite bed, studying the three pictures they'd taken from the McCray's basement, but at that moment he kind of wondered whether Sam even registered the fact that he was there.

When they were younger, Dean had known everything about his brother. As a family, they'd harbored plenty of secrets, yes; but back then, Sam managed to keep nothing from Dean. What he was thinking; what he was feeling; what did he want; what did he need. Sam could tell Dean anything. And even when he wasn't telling, his older brother just somehow always seemed to know.

There was a fundamental difference between the way they had interacted then and the way they communicated – or didn't – now, and that difference had not been lost on Dean.

"You're staring at me," Sam said suddenly, his eyes still on the photographs.

Dean frowned and pushed himself up from the bed, a little pissed off at himself for having been caught. "What can I say, Sam? You're just that hot." He went to the window, nudged one edge of the curtains aside, and peered out at the nearly empty lot. He wondered at the complete desolation that met his gaze.

Sam snorted and sat up on the bed. "Have you found anything?" he asked.

"Other than a load of jack shit? No."

"You're not going to."

Dean let the curtain fall across the window again. He slowly wiped a hand down his face, letting it linger for a moment over his mouth. Then he folded his arms tightly across his chest and leaned a shoulder against the wall. He sighed deeply and turned back to his brother.

"I think we're barking up the wrong tree here," Sam continued. "We're grasping at straws."

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "Dude. Why are you speaking in clichés?"

Sam tore his attention away from the pictures long enough to shoot Dean a dirty look. "You said you searched all last night and found nothing. So unless you did a completely crap-ass job, we're not going to find anything new today."

Dean nodded. And frowned. "Jeez. Way to paint a rosy picture, Sam."

"Wait a minute." Suddenly, Sam was up. He grabbed his jacket off a chair and dug around in the pocket for his phone.

Dean watched him with curious interest as he hit a couple buttons and held the phone to his ear. "Who're you calling?"

Sam swatted the question away as a voice picked up on the other end of the line.

"Mrs. Wheeler?" Sam said, infusing as much winsome cheer as he could into his tone. "Hi, this is Sam Burns." He paused, and Dean shook his head at Sam's ability to induce complete, eager cooperation even over the phone. "Yeah, thanks again for that. He _was_ a big help. We're very intrigued."

Sam sank down into one of the stiff motel room chairs, and Dean slid into the one opposite. He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together and resting his forearms against the edge of the small round table.

"Yes, that's actually why I'm calling. Uh huh." He glanced across the table at Dean and, upon meeting his brother's scrutinizing stare, stood up again and began to pace. "It's about Mike and the other victims. How much do you know about their families?" He nodded slowly at whatever she was saying. "Well, one of the articles we've consulted indicates all five of the missing people had experienced family tragedy at some point in their lives. Can you tell me if that's a valid observation?"

Sam listened for a few moments, then stopped mid-pace facing the bathroom door, his back to Dean. He brought his free hand up and laid it against the doorjamb at shoulder level. And as he listened, he began to squeeze. He kept listening, and he squeezed harder, until Dean could actually see from all the way across the room the tips of Sam's fingers and the nail beds turning white.

"Yeah," he said, finally. Softly. Breathily. Like he'd confirmed something he'd suspected but was still sorry or disturbed to find out. "That _is_ quite a coincidence. No, I'm not sure what it means for the film, but it's definitely an interesting angle. Yes, thank you again. You've been a tremendous help."

He ended the call with the press of a button and a quiet beep. He didn't turn around right away, and Dean could practically see the wheels spinning as he grappled with whatever new information he'd just obtained.

"Trouble in Mayberry?" Dean prompted grimly, watching his back.

Sam's hand was still on the doorjamb, and he leaned against it to keep himself steady. His phone hand went around his stomach, and he ducked his head a little, hoping that Dean wouldn't notice. The cold, dull ache in his stomach had turned into something sharp, and he gritted his teeth against the worsening pain. He sucked in a deep breath and held it for a moment before turning to face his brother.

"What? It's that bad?"

Sam shook his head. "It's that interesting. And it's no coincidence."

Dean's eyebrows lifted expectantly. "What, are you waiting for me to guess?"

Sam moved back to the table and sat down across from Dean. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands under the table.

"Mrs. Wheeler said Mrs. Mitchell is Mike's _step_-mother," Sam said matter-of-factly.

Dean wasn't following, and his expression conveyed that. "Wow, Sam. Way to go on the extraneous information there."

Sam rolled his eyes. "It's not extraneous, Dean. She said Mike's real mother died five years ago…" He paused for effect. "Amidst rumors of her infidelity."

Okay, so it was juicy gossip. But Dean still wasn't sure how it came to bear upon the issue at hand. Sam, on the other hand, was clearly agitated.

"I really hope there's more," Dean said.

"There is. She also said all four of the other victims had one deceased parent, and all four of the dead parents at some point had been suspected of cheating on their spouses."

"Wait, wait, wait." Dean's elbows were on the table, and he put his face in his hands for a moment before leaning back and running his fingers through his hair. "So are you saying the McCrays had something to do with the five deaths?"

"No," Sam said, shaking his head. He got up from the table again and resumed pacing. "No, I don't think that's what this is about. It's about the infidelity, Dean. Iona said Mr. and Mrs. McCray had a falling out over his affair with another woman."

Dean nodded as he caught onto Sam's train of thought. "So our spirit, or poltergeist, or whatever we're dealing with here, is latching onto these families because it identifies with what happened to them? But why abduct the kids? Why not abduct the adulterers? What purpose does it serve making the surviving parent suffer?"

Sam stopped pacing again and lowered himself slowly onto one of the beds. His arm was once more around his middle, and now he gripped a chunk of his sweater tightly in his fist. His eyes were troubled and fixed on a spot on the carpet.

"Sam?" Dean stood, suddenly ready to do something for his brother, although he wasn't sure what. "Hey. What's the matter with you?"

_Rain. It was rain._

In his mind, Sam heard the breaking apart of the ice, remembered the shock of the lake consuming him. He could practically feel the contradictory burn of the frigid water as it entered his lungs. And those icy fingers moving over his body…the hands holding him suspended in the darkness, their touch well-disposed and benign, yet so uncomfortably intimate. Unnatural. _Supernatural._

"Rain," Sam said quietly. It was almost a whisper. Then he looked over at Dean with wide eyes. "Don't you get it, man?"

Dean thought it was pretty clear that no, he did not. But he didn't say anything, just waited patiently for Sam to connect the dots.

"Rain is a person, Dean."

Dean frowned. "A person?" he repeated.

Sam reached back and grabbed the pictures from where he'd dropped them on the comforter. He sifted through them briefly and then held one up for his brother to see.

Dean took the picture from Sam's hand and sat down across from him on the opposite bed. "You're saying this girl's name is Rain McCray?" he asked skeptically. "I don't get it, Sam. What does that mean?"

"It means they're all dead," he said flatly.

Dean watched him with rekindled concern. "What?"

"The five victims. They're not missing, Dean. They're dead."

"How could you possibly know all this?" Dean asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

"They told me."

Dean's eyebrows lifted.

Now Sam looked at him. "Back at the farm," he explained. "In the lake. I thought I was…I dunno…hallucinating."

Well, that was lame, and they both knew it. Dean rolled his eyes. "You thought you were hallucinating," he said, nodding slowly and frowning. "And you just forgot to tell me."

"I didn't think it meant anything, Dean."

That was bull shit, and it incensed Dean that Sam would think he needed to lie about this.

"Look," Dean said calmly, exhibiting what he felt to be an inordinate amount of restraint. "I know you didn't ask for this, but it is what it is, man."

Sam was studying the carpet again.

"You have to tell me when things happen to you," he went on, his voice low. "Otherwise I can't protect you."

"I don't need you to protect me, Dean."

The look on Sam's face was almost enough to earn him a punch in the jaw. Who did he think he was? To tell Dean, who had been watching out for his kid brother for 22 years, what he did and didn't need.

"Whatever, Sam," Dean snapped. "Okay, so what? She's killing them why?"

"The sins of those you hunt so closely echo the sins you've committed yourself…" Sam's eyes were distant, perhaps back in that room with Iona Rothschild.

"Huh?" Dean asked eloquently.

"She killed her mother, Dean. Possibly her father."

"And you know this…how?"

"Dude, everybody's favorite psychic told us."

Sam looked at him with eyes like a child's, and a hot sensation of rage tempered with helplessness surged through Dean's body. He'd long ago given up asking why them? Why his family? But a part of Sam obviously still needed to know. What could they possibly have done to deserve this?

Dean stood up, unable to withstand that look from his brother. He turned away, went to the window and looked out.

"Okay, just give me a minute to process all of this."

"What's there to process?"

"Well, for starters, _why_ is she killing them?"

"We already know that. Because they all found something down there in that basement."

"But what did they find? And if what you're saying is true, how did she get those particular five people to go down there in the first place?"

"I don't know. Maybe she lured them there." Sam swallowed. "Like she lured us."

Dean spun around and looked at his brother like he was crazy. "That doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't?"

Dean clenched his fists where they hung at his sides. His jaw was tense, and he stared Sam down coldly, challenged him. When he spoke, his voice was deliberate and venomous. "If you're implying that Mom was ever anything but faithful to Dad – "

"No, Dean!" Sam stood up. "I'm not implying that at all."

"Then what, Sam?" Dean was practically yelling now. "Why would she lure us?"

"Because of me, okay? Because of the similarities she sees between herself and me. Because…" His voice lost its heat as he dropped back down onto the bed. He openly clutched at his stomach now. "Because of our sin." His voice broke. "Because she destroyed her family, and she thinks I destroyed mine."

Dean examined Sam's haggard appearance as if seeing him for the first time. His eyes narrowed.

"So was she right about this?" he demanded.

"Was who right about what?" Sam asked cautiously.

"Everybody's favorite psychic," he said pointedly. "Was she right?"

Sam blanched at the suggestion, and Dean felt himself crossing over from angry to furious. At Iona Rothschild for digging this pain up; at Sam for letting her.

"About this _town_, Sam," he clarified, his tone only a little less harsh. "About how coming to this town has affected you. I mean, you've looked like crap for a long time now, so I was starting to think that must be normal. But is there more to it here? Are you hiding shit from me?"

"I'm not hiding anything," Sam lied without really intending to. It was just an automatic response to an unwelcome interrogation. "I mean…I'm fine. I'm okay. I just – "

"Well, what the hell is it?" Dean knew he was about to lose control, but he couldn't stop himself, couldn't keep the words from coming out. All his life, he'd always been so patient with Sam. "You think you can just keep acting like you're hunky dory, and your big fat deception doesn't affect anyone else? I swear to God, Sam. One of these days, these secrets – these omissions of yours – are going to get one of us killed. And with your track record, just watch it be me."

It was a terrible thing to say, and he regretted it instantly. Dean had always been a master at walking that line between cunning disrespect and flagrant cruelty, but in the heat of his frustration and concern over what he perceived to be Sam's completely self-serving reticence, he'd slipped. He'd made a mistake.

It was as if Sam had been struck. A stifling silence fell over the room.

"Jesus, Sammy…" Dean expelled a deep breath and ran both hands through his hair, his anger dissipating almost as suddenly as it had come over him. "I didn't mean that the way it came out."

"You sure about that, man?" Sam looked up at him, smiling inappropriately. But it was a bitter smile. "'Cause it kind of sounded like you've been wanting to say that for a long time."

Dean closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "Look, Sam, can we not have this conversation?" When he opened his eyes again, Sam was on his feet shoving the pictures into the McCrays' wooden box. "I was out of line. You just… Man, you freak me out sometimes. I mean, I keep finding out there's all this stuff going on with you that you don't tell me about."

"I'm a big kid now, Dean," he said, grabbing his jacket and shrugging it on. "You don't have to know everything about me. I'm entitled to my privacy."

Dean pushed off from the wall and positioned himself between Sam and the door. Of course he was. He certainly should have been. But what Dean had already realized and what Sam seemed so desperate to resist was the fact that their lives were not their own, and the rules of life just applied differently to them. Some of them not at all.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

Sam had tucked the box under his arm and moved towards the door, stopping in front of Dean. He lifted his chin slightly and set his jaw. "Get out of my way, Dean."

It pissed Dean off that he was looking up at his kid brother. Sam was actually trying to intimidate him, and under other circumstances, Dean might have laughed. Granted, his brother was tall and lean, and beneath the layered shirts and jeans he was all hardened muscle. Dean knew better than anybody that one of Sam's greatest weapons was his boyish face; it was deceptive to say the least. Sam was gentle and endearing, the kind of person to whom complete strangers felt comfortable spilling their guts. But beyond all that, he really wasn't somebody to fuck around with; when he needed to, he could kick some serious ass.

But to Dean, he was _Sammy_. And he always would be.

"You gotta be kidding me."

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

Dean rolled his eyes and released a throaty groan. Then he shook his head in disbelief. He couldn't remember anymore at what point this discussion had turned into a fight. "What're you, going to walk?"

"If I have to." Sam's voice had lost none of its indignant edge.

They stared at each other in tense silence for a moment.

"Well, maybe you should stop and think about that for a minute before you go off all half-cocked without any weapons and without any clue as to how to get rid of this dead chick."

Sam looked defiant, yet sufficiently subdued. He relaxed his shoulders and backed off a couple steps.

"I told you, Dean. I just want to get this done."

"And we will. Just…relax for a minute." Dean left his position at the door and had a seat once again at the small round table. There was a greasy smudge on one side where he'd left Sam's take-out bag the night before. He rested one hand on his thigh and scratched at his forehead with the other. "Look, there's still a couple pretty serious variables we haven't figured out yet. Like what are they finding down in the basement? And why would she lure them there if she doesn't want them to see it?"

Sam joined him at the table, setting the McCrays' box down on top of the smudge. He rested his forearms against the table, his hands on either side of the box. "Maybe she does want them to see it. But once they have, she doesn't want them telling anyone else about it."

Dean frowned across the table. "So what is it? You were down there. What did you see?"

"I don't know. Just junk. Shelves…canning jars…an oar for some kind of boat…" He stopped suddenly, and Dean watched his gaze slowly shift down to the box sitting between them.

And the box.

Wordlessly, he lifted the lid and began to remove the contents one by one, placing them on the table. The watch, the pencils, the ribbon, the rose. The pictures of Rain McCray and her parents. The last thing he pulled out of the box was the book.

"I thought you went through that this morning," Dean said quietly. "And it was just farm stuff."

"I only got about halfway through," Sam admitted.

"Well, way to leave no stone unturned."

Sam ignored him, sliding a finger under the clasp. He flipped past the records and charts to the back of the journal, and stopped when he found what they'd been looking for: several long pages of narrative, written in a girlish script. The formal handwriting and articulate prose suggested Rain McCray had not planned on remaining at that farm for the rest of her life. She was well-educated and apparently had dreams of her own. Until her family obligations changed all that.

Sam read in silence for several long moments, his face paling. Even after all the things they had seen and learned in their lives, mortal turpitude and depravity still had the power to shock them. That fact was just one of the things that kept them human and kept them sane.

"It's Rain's," Sam confirmed softly.

"Well what's it say?" Dean pressed. "What is it?"

Sam looked up at him, and there was anguish where Dean had expected to find disgust. Sam shivered and slid an arm around his stomach without thinking.

No wonder Rain hadn't wanted this getting out.

"They're her confessions."


	7. Chapter 7

**Standard Disclaimer**: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

**Author's Note**: Okay, I'm aware this chapter is extremely short and actually kind of sucks. I've got writer's block. Don't you hate that? At least now you'll know what Rain did. The end is totally in sight; I'm just having trouble with this brief transition. I promise the guys will actually _do something_ the next time I post. :)

* * *

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

**_Previously..._**

_"It's Rain's," Sam confirmed softly. _

_"Well what's it say?" Dean pressed. "What is it?" _

_Sam looked up at him, and there was anguish where Dean had expected to find disgust. Sam shivered and slid an arm around his stomach without thinking. _

_No wonder Rain hadn't wanted this getting out. _

_"They're her confessions." _

Part VII

Sam had no right to feel betrayed. Dean had only been voicing a valid concern. He couldn't be mad at Dean for stating a fact. Besides, Dean had apologized. Sort of.

Sam stood and moved away from the table. His eyes took in the dreary room, and he realized there was nowhere he could go where Dean wouldn't still see him. In his life, there was nowhere he could go where Dean wouldn't still see him. It was comforting and suffocating at the same time.

The heater was noisy as it circulated tepid air throughout the small space. At some point during that morning, it had begun to rattle, like something had vibrated its way loose inside. It had been white noise the whole time they'd been trying to piece the McCrays' story together, but now it grated on Sam's nerves. He went to the window and cranked the dial to "off."

In the resulting stillness, he could hear Dean slowly turning pages in Rain's book as he read and re-read everything she'd written. He bit down on his bottom lip as the page-turning began to bother him.

Dean glanced up when the heater shut off and wasn't surprised to be looking at Sam's back. He returned his attention to the book in his hands and flipped through the pages for the fifth time.

"You know, you could just take off your jacket," Dean suggested offhandedly, after a brief silence.

Sam didn't turn around. "It's the noise," he said tensely.

Dean didn't respond, just pursed his lips and went back to the book. It was reprehensible, what she'd done. And fittingly problematic. It seemed every connection they made only brought about further questions. Like how were they going to salt and burn this girl's remains when she'd already done the job herself?

"Do you think she was alive when she did it, or did she set the fire and then off herself just before it spread?"

Sam shrugged. "If it was me, I guess I would do it alive. How else could she be sure the fire would finish the job?"

"If it was you?" Dean repeated. He was still seated at the table with a foot propped on his empty bed. He tucked a finger into the book to save his place, then closed it and rested his wrist on his up-drawn knee. Even hypothetically, Dean didn't like the idea of his brother contemplating his own death by fire.

Sam didn't say anything. His hands were on his hips, and his head was down. From behind, he just looked casually impatient, like he was waiting in a not unreasonably long line.

There were two personal entries in the back of the journal. Neither was dated, so there was no telling how much time had elapsed between the two. The first entry filled eleven pages, the second only one.

At first, Rain McCray wrote eloquently and persuasively, lamenting the fortune that befell her. Her father's unfaithfulness, her mother's silent rage, her own desperate desire to escape. She explained it in an overly dramatic, 19th century romantic novel sort of way, so whoever was reading might almost be tempted to take her side.

She'd had no way of knowing of her father's indiscretion, let alone any means by which to have prevented or stopped it. Yet her mother seemed to blame them both, her father and Rain. Perhaps it was the sight of her that drove her mother past all reason; her face was just a younger, more feminine version of Mr. McCray's. Or maybe it was the lost youth Rain represented: her mother's slim beauty and freedom stolen by Rain's unexpected conception and unwelcome birth, condemning her once prominent mother to an unfulfilling marriage and life with an adulterer.

For whatever reason, after her husband's transgression, Mrs. McCray never seemed to love Rain again. Further education was no longer an option, nor was marriage or any hope she'd had of ever leaving Grant.

While Mrs. McCray took out her anger on Rain, Rain in turn blamed Mr. McCray and his ineptitude as a father, a husband, and a provider. Discontented as she was, her mother had at least been true to her vows, whereas Mr. McCray had been weak and given in to his lust. This loss of love, loss of respect, was what allowed Rain to acquiesce to her mother's sordid plan for revenge. It was an insane attempt at salvaging her mother's dignity, and Mrs. McCray promised it would mean a much more respectful and much less arduous life for Rain.

They'd killed him. They'd poisoned his food with fertilizer and chemicals from the farm. Then they'd burned his body and spread his ashes across the lake. Mrs. McCray had prepared the potent concoction and served it to her husband one cool, fall night. Then she'd made Rain dispose of the heavy body.

It had been hard work. Her father was a large man, and she'd struggled with his dead weight. It took her an hour to drag his cold body into the cover of the woods. Halfway through, she'd used an accelerant and a single match to set him ablaze. It was several more hours before the body had burned completely, and the stench clung to Rain's person. It seeped into her clothes, caused her eyes to water, penetrated the strands of her long, dark hair. The smoke was black, and it trailed in a thin plume past the tree branches and away into the midnight sky.

She was shocked when all that finally remained of the fire were a few dim embers and a small mess of gray ash on the soft ground between the trees. She knelt down and gathered the fabric of her skirt into a makeshift pouch. She scooped her father's remains into her dress with her bare hands, then carried her much lightened burden to the lake.

The water was black and still, and it looked thick like tar in the night. The moon was just a sliver, but there were a thousand stars. Rain could see what she was doing, despite the dark. It was as if she had guidance from a higher power, and that assistance was what convinced her she was doing right. It was a just ending to her father. An ending he deserved. Surely no one could fault her for that.

There had been no wind that night. No ripples on the water. No rustle of falling leaves. Nothing but Rain to carry her father's ashes out onto the lake.

She tied the edges of her skirt into a tight knot at her waist and used both hands to grasp the rough side of a small, wooden boat that sat halfway in a patch of high grass and halfway in her father's chilly grave. Her shoes and ankles disappeared beneath the surface as she waded out alongside the boat. When it was floating freely, she stepped in and sat down on the seat, took hold of the oars, and slowly paddled her way towards the middle of the lake. Her ears filled with the trickling sound of the boat displacing water. Finally, she drifted to a complete stop.

There was no hurry, really. No one knew she was there. No one knew what they'd done. It was unlikely anyone would ever find out. She stood slowly, so as to not rock and lose her balance. She loosed the knot in her skirt and looked down at her father's remains. They were just dirt. An inconsequential mess. She shook the fabric, and the ashes fell into the lake.

Rain said no prayer for her father, spoke no final words at all. She just sat back down and guided the little boat back towards the shore. Once there, she climbed out and dragged the vessel back onto dry land. The trees loomed above her, the stars stared down, and the woods stood in judgment over Rain McCray. _Not guilty_, she knew they would conclude, but she pulled an oar out of the boat and carried it with her back to her mother's house. Just to be safe.

The second entry in Rain's journal was written in the same flowery script, but the sentences were disjointed and incomplete, as if she had been in a hurry to capture the thoughts as they flew through her mind. Mrs. McCray had convinced Rain that killing her father was for the best, but, apparently, she'd needed no outside persuasion to murder her mother. Except it couldn't end there, she wrote. She would also have to kill herself. There really was no other way. The McCrays – all of them – were just too damaged.

She planned to use the same chemicals to spike Mrs. McCray's next meal and taint her after-dinner coffee. Next she would drag her mother over the same path as she'd dragged Mr. McCray, only Rain would be strong enough to take this body intact all the way out to the lake. She would float them both, her mother and herself, in the boat, out onto the water. Finally, she would light a fire after the sun had set.

No one would notice the smoke as it rose towards the sky, lifting their fetid existence away with it. Only the hired hands would be surprised when they showed up at the farm in the morning. The McCrays would not be there to greet them.

Dean flipped the book shut and tossed it onto the tabletop. His boot was still on the bed, and the coils creaked in a vaguely obscene way as he absently bounced his knee. He had a finger in his mouth, ripped the nail down to the quick, then started in on another.

He glanced over at Sam, who still had his back to his brother. He'd moved the curtains aside and now stood with his forehead pressed against the cold window and his palms spread flat at shoulder height, as if he were preparing to push his way through the glass. Near his slightly parted lips was a circle of condensation that grew larger each time he exhaled.

"Jesus, Sam, you sure do know how to attract the psycho bitches," Dean sighed.

Sam snorted. The noise sounded almost like a stifled sob in the otherwise silent motel room.

"I guess I'm just cursed," he muttered.

Dean eyed the back of his head, decided he was kidding.

"So what do we do?"

Dean shrugged. "Give me a minute. I'm still figuring that out."

"Could you maybe figure a little faster?" His voice sounded strained.

Sam could practically feel his brother's concerned gaze like a heavy weight on his back. The strain of bearing it made him sweat. He was trying, but he just couldn't stop thinking about what they'd read, about what Rain had done. And the fact that she compared – maybe even equated – what she'd done to ruin her family to what Sam had done to ruin his – which was merely existed – was becoming almost too much to take.

He didn't want to be leaning this heavily against the window, but it was cool against his aching head. He squeezed his eyes closed, and his fingers curled into tight fists.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice came at him from a distance. "Sam." Drifting farther away, like he was leaving. Or Sam was. One of them was going, and the other would have to stay.


	8. Chapter 8

**Standard Disclaimer**: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

**Author's Note:** Whoops. No more trying to predict how many chapters I have left. Two chapters ago I said two, but it sure isn't over yet. I don't know if any other authors are feeling this, or if it's just me. But when I started writing this, Dean was still his early-series, snarky self. And in the second half of the season, he's turned into a character with a lot more depth, and now he's saying and doing things on the show that I didn't anticipate him saying or doing in my fic. Things that I'm now trying to make him say and do without deviating too much from who he was at the beginning of the story. He's more difficult to write now, I guess is what I'm saying. For me. Harder to balance. At any rate, I hope you still recognize him and that you still feel I'm doing the characters justice. If so or if not, comments and criticisms welcomed.

Oh, and I apologize for being bad about responding to reviews lately. Thank you so much to those of you who take the time to do it. I truly appreciate the encouragement.

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

**_Previously..._**

He didn't want to be leaning this heavily against the window, but it was cool against his aching head. He squeezed his eyes closed, and his fingers curled into tight fists.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice came at him from a distance. "Sam." Drifting farther away, like he was leaving. Or Sam was. One of them was going, and the other would have to stay.

Part VIII

"Sam."

There was a hand on his face.

"Winchester."

The hand moved to his shoulder and gave him a light shake.

"Asshole!"

The hand disappeared, and he felt a sharp pain on his left biceps.

"Ow!" Sam's eyes snapped open, and he looked up at his brother like he was crazy. His right hand moved reflexively to rub at his arm. "Dude, did you seriously just pinch me?"

"Be grateful I didn't slap you."

"_You_ be grateful you didn't slap me. I might've punched you back."

"Right. Really, I'm shaking. I mean, you look pretty formidable there lying flat on your back."

Dean stood and disappeared from his line of sight. Sam let his gaze drift and slowly recognized the hem of the floral bedspread. His face was disgustingly close to the grubby carpet, which, from this proximity, smelled like a mixture of spot cleaner and smoke. There was a plastic cup from the bathroom and a stray sock under the bed. He wondered if it was one of theirs. It looked dirty enough.

"I'm confused," he said finally. His brow creased, but he made no effort to move.

"Three more members, and we can start a club."

Sam continued to stare under the bed until a strong hand grasped his elbow and pulled him to a sitting position on the floor. Dean knelt down in front of him and looked into his eyes appraisingly. Then he stuck his middle finger right in front of Sam's face.

"How many?"

Sam rolled his eyes and brushed Dean's hand away. Then he looked at his brother seriously. "Should I even ask?"

"Actually, I was hoping you would tell me." Dean sat back on his heels.

Sam shook his head mutely and shrugged.

"Well, are you okay?" Dean pressed.

Suddenly, Sam registered the familiar rattle of the heating unit. He turned and looked at it like it was some living thing he'd just minutes ago believed to be dead. "Did you turn that back on?"

"It's cold in here, Sam." Dean was being…disturbingly patient. "Look at yourself. You're shaking."

Sam reached up and fumbled for the knob. It took him a few seconds to find it. He switched it off and then closed his eyes in relief at the resulting silence. He breathed deeply and put a hand to his head, looked a little like a junkie who'd just gotten his latest fix.

He knew what Dean was thinking. Hell, he probably would have come to the same conclusion had he been watching himself. But the truth was, he'd just passed out. Good, old fashioned, haven't slept, haven't eaten, too much has been said, too much is happening, _this is your body talking cut me some slack for once_ passed out. He opened his eyes, and Dean was still looking at him with calm concern.

"So what's the plan?" he asked, ready to focus on a more important subject.

"Uh…okay…" Dean appeared momentarily nonplussed. "Well, it's not completely fleshed out yet, but I'm thinking it's probably going to involve you being able to scrape your ass off the floor."

Sam's eyes narrowed, but he still wasn't trying to stand. "You were supposed to be figuring something out," he said accusingly.

Dean fixed him with a _you can't be serious_ look. "I was distracted."

"You were distracted," he repeated.

Dean's eyebrows lifted. "Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Did you miss that? Dude, you totally should've seen it. A guy just keeled over right here in front of me. Hard. And he was tall, too, so he kind of had a long way to go. Seriously, man, it was like watching somebody fell a tree – "

"Okay, I get it." Sam rubbed his hands over his face.

"Well, good, because I don't. What the hell just happened, Sam?" He paused before voicing his next question. "Did you see something?"

There it was. Sam shook his head again. He hadn't seen anything. Wherever he'd gone, it was completely black. He actually hoped, once they'd gotten rid of Rain, that his overactive mind might allow him to go back there for an extended stay.

Dean sighed and slapped his hands on his thighs, pushed himself up from the floor. He held a hand out to his brother, who took it and allowed Dean to pull him up. Then he went to the table and took a seat. He put a hand on Rain's book, drummed his fingers once.

"Okay, listen," he said, not looking at Sam. He put a foot on the bed. "I'm gonna finish this one on my own."

Sam didn't flinch. "Uh…I'm sorry. What did you just say?"

Dean eyed him evenly. "I'm finishing this…by…myself," he enunciated slowly.

Sam took a moment to stare at him in disbelief. Then he closed the gap between them, leaned a hand against the tabletop, and came dangerously close to getting too far into his brother's impassive face. "That's bullshit. No, you're not."

"It's _not_ bullshit. Yes, I am."

If this was going to be a battle of wills, Dean honestly wasn't quite sure who would win.

Sam stood there, just staring at Dean. He was tired, and he knew Dean was, too. They were always tired, and they always worked through it. It was like Dean to want to protect him; but it was unlike Dean to discount his value in a hunt.

"I'm fine," Sam said finally, even as his head continued to throb.

"Hey, would you fucking quit with the Jedi mind tricks already? That shit isn't going to work on me. I'm your brother, and I've known you your whole life."

"Then you also know I'm not just going to let you leave me here," Sam insisted, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He shoved Dean's dirty boot off the mattress.

Dean rolled his eyes and sat up straighter in his chair. It wasn't going to be a battle of wills at all, and, looking into Sam's eyes, he knew it. "Look, Sam, I'm serious."

"Look, Dean, so am I." Sam stared him down, aware that he was about to win this argument. "Tell me how you're planning on finishing it, then."

Dean shrugged. "I'll go down to the basement and provoke the twisted bitch. Then I'll shoot her little shadow ass into rock salt oblivion."

"We already tried that out at the lake, and the rock salt didn't work." Sam tried to keep the triumph out of his voice. "And how do you know she won't manifest as the poltergeist that attacked that demolition crew? Rock salt won't work in that case, either. Besides…"

"Besides what?" Dean asked warily.

"You'll need me to provoke her." The arm around the stomach was becoming a permanent gesture. In all honesty, Sam thought he must be getting used to the pain.

"Hey, hey. Let's not get conceited here."

Sam just kept looking at him intensely, so Dean sighed.

"Okay. Maybe you're right," he conceded. "But I'm going on record as stating I don't like it."

"Please. I'm not afraid of her, Dean."

"Well, maybe you should be. You read what she did to her parents. She was a human being back then, Sam. There's no telling what she's capable of now that she's a spirit."

"That's exactly why you need me to go with you. You're not afraid of her, Dean." Sam looked at him earnestly. "So neither am I."

Dean froze for a moment. The room was so quiet, they could hear a semi thunder by on the road out of Grant. It was statements and looks like those that gave Sam his power over Dean. The kicker was, the little bastard didn't even do it on purpose.

Dean ran a hand through his hair, then gave his brother a stern look. "Okay, fine. I have an idea." He grabbed his coat and snatched his keys off the table. "Bring a lighter."

**:  
**

Sam stood there numbly while Dean pulled the cuff of his sleeve up over his palm and attempted to wipe the heavy snow off the windshield. He just stood and watched his brother over the roof of the car as Dean leaned forward and stretched to reach the center of the glass. With each swipe of his arm, there was a soft, wet thud of three hours' worth of accumulation hitting the frozen ground. Dean looked determined. He looked in a hurry. He didn't glance at his brother until the windshield was mostly clear.

"Dude. Windows."

Sam gave a small nod, then used his bare hand to scrape snow off the passenger side windows and mirror. He knew he was moving slowly, but it was the best he could do. He was in pain, and he didn't want Dean to know. He didn't want Dean to know how…strange…he felt. The nausea and the headache were still there, but ever since they'd read about Rain, there was also something else. He couldn't explain it, didn't even want to try, but it was something he'd felt before. It was in his chest, and it ached, and it frightened him.

It was nearly five o'clock, and the sun had already set. There was a bright security lamp attached to the corner of their building, and its yellow light cast long shadows all around them.

"Good night for a bonfire," Dean said with a grin and a bob of his eyebrows. The car door creaked as he opened it and slid behind the wheel.

Sam got in more slowly and pulled his door shut as the engine rumbled to life. The Impala sounded tough and guttural, like power, and polluted the otherwise quiet night. Dean revved the engine and looked at his brother.

"You got the book?"

Sam nodded grimly and flashed his inside jacket pocket. Rain's worn journal was tucked tightly inside it.

"Then let's get this party started."

They pulled onto the dark road towards the McCrays'.

"This seems a little extreme, Dean," Sam said, watching the snowflakes as they passed through the low beams of the headlights. "Even for us."

"Look, the book is obvious, but that house has to go, too. Just in case."

"I just…" Sam started, then shook his head shortly and clamped his mouth shut.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could see his brother donning his patented _I stare through the windshield so I won't see anything else_ expression. The look was annoying at best, infuriating at worst, and worrisome every time.

So Dean feigned nonchalance. "You'd tell me if something was wrong with you, right?"

Sam just kept right on staring.

Dean gave him a casual glance. "You know, the appropriate answer here would be 'yes.'"

Sam still wouldn't look at him, and there was a preoccupied edge to his voice. "I would tell you if I didn't think I was capable of backing you up."

Dean nodded thoughtfully, turning his attention back to the road. "Wow, that's…that's not even close to comforting, Sam."

"It's what you were getting at, isn't it?"

"Actually…no." He tapped a thumb on the steering wheel and tried to be patient. "I was getting at the fact that you've had kind of a crappy past 24 hours, and you look like there might be something wrong with you."

Sam turned in his seat and gave his brother an incredulous look. "Why are you always saying shit like that? I look _fine_," he huffed. "Jesus Christ, Dean, have you taken a look in the mirror at yourself lately? I could say you look like crap warmed over, too. But I don't. You'd think you could extend me the same favor. I'm tired, okay? All right, I admit that. Otherwise I'm just fucking fine. You do realize I just fell into a fucking frozen lake last night, right? So what the hell do you expect? Miss Fucking America?"

As far as unprovoked, irrational hissy fits went, it was pretty _fucking_ impressive.

Dean wasn't sure how his brother wanted him to react, but he was willing to wager laughter wouldn't go over well. So he opted not to react at all. He just drove, and the windshield wipers brushed the snow away. It was getting colder, and the flakes were getting smaller and drier. Soon they would be solid ice.

Sam glared at him a moment longer, then slouched down into the leather seat. He folded his arms across his chest, and Rain's journal pressed against his ribcage.

"A little less caffeine, a little more sex…" The words were muttered under his breath.

Sam gave his brother a dirty look. "What did you say?" he snapped.

"Huh?" Dean turned to him with wide, innocent eyes. He shrugged. "I didn't say anything."

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed. "So fucking infantile…" It was Sam who muttered this time.

"_Me_ infantile?" Dean exclaimed. He shook his head and smiled disbelievingly. "Okay, Sam. Whatever you say."

They'd been driving past a dense block of trees for the past half mile, and in the snow and darkness, Dean missed the turn. The road was slick with black ice, and even though his speed was abnormally slow, the brakes locked, and the car slid forward several yards.

"Nice driving," Sam commented dryly after they'd come to a stop halfway onto the shoulder.

"Hey, Miss Daisy, keep it up," Dean replied, throwing the car into reverse. "After we're finished with this, I'd love to kick your ass."

Sam actually smiled. It was small, but it was definitely a smile.

"Seriously, Sam," Dean said suddenly, as they started up the wooded drive towards the empty house. The snow crunched loudly under the Impala's tires.

"Seriously you'd love to kick my ass?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "No, seriously are you okay? Healthy people don't just go around passing out. And you never really answered me about what Iona said." He rethought that statement with a frown. "Well, you did, but I think you were lying."

Sam sighed and leaned his head against the passenger window. "Let's not be serious, Dean," he said quietly.

It sounded like something a seven-year-old Sammy might have said. Amidst the constant stress of moving around so much, the ever-present apprehension and danger tied to the hunt, all the tension, the feelings of anger, sorrow, and loss, Sammy might have looked up at him (when was the last time Sam had physically looked up to his big brother?) with the eyes and the dimples and the messy hair, and implored, "Let's not be serious, Dean." Dean would have taken one look at that little face, and, by God, he would have _not been serious_ like it was his job.

They pulled up in front of the farm house, and Dean let the engine idle. The headlights streamed towards the front of the house like spotlights, illuminating the porch.

"You ready to lay this bad boy to rest?" Dean turned to look at his brother, who opened his door in response. Dean pulled the key from the ignition. "Okay, man. Look alive."

The car doors slammed shut almost simultaneously; one sounded like a dull echo of the other. Then they stood and looked towards the McCrays' deserted house. It looked slightly different now that they knew what had transpired inside all those years before. It was oddly a little less foreboding and more like a run-down victim.

They made their way up to the missing porch steps, Sam lagging slightly behind. The snow was ankle deep, and their tracks from the day before had been completely erased. Dean flipped on his flashlight, igniting a large circle of light that reflected brightly off the pristine snow. They stopped next to the overturned bucket, and Dean shone his light towards the front door. The house looked bigger in the dark. The porch looked longer; the barns looked farther away; the tree growing out of the silo looked a little taller. The rickety old swing hanging from its two corroded chains was moving slowly, creaking softly in a frigid breeze. The cold wind feathered Sam's hair off his forehead.

"All right." Dean stepped up onto the decaying wood. "We do this fast and then get the hell out."

He hoped it would be that easy.


	9. Chapter 9

**Standard Disclaimer**: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

**Author's Note:** Okay, I got rid of the inexplicably bitter author's note. :) I'm in a happy place once again!

* * *

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

**_Previously..._**

_"All right." Dean stepped up onto the decaying wood. "We do this fast and then get the hell out." _

_He hoped it would be that easy. _

Part IX

Their lives were so insanely fucked up. Dean spent his life purposely seeking out the things nightmares were made of; he'd willingly gone after all manner of evil entities and creatures without giving them a second thought. But, ironically, the thing that scared him most in this world was walking behind him through the McCrays' abandoned house. It was his ultimate vulnerability. Sam and his inconvenient need to escape from the hunt. Sam and his unharnessed potential for power. Sam and the frightening uncertainty of his future. Sam and the indescribable rush of emotion Dean felt just thinking about him and recognizing the true magnitude of his vow to keep his brother from irreparable harm.

Sometimes Sam thought he was so smart and so smooth, and that Dean must be some kind of freaking idiot. But Sam was the real dumb-ass if he didn't think his brother could read him like a book. He might not be privy to every thought going through Sam's head, but Dean knew when his brother was off his game and trying to hide it. It was an arrogance Dean imagined every youngest child must exhibit, oblivious to the fact that their older siblings had been aware of them long before they were even capable of being aware of themselves.

So even though the house was currently calm and still, its ruinous contents still scattered in disarray throughout the decaying rooms, Dean felt a tense rush of adrenaline pushing him forward, urging him to take his brother and ditch this house and the whole town as soon as humanly possible.

Dean led the way through the front parlor and down the hall to the kitchen. The beam of his flashlight bounced ahead of them, occasionally hitting the thin layer of frost on the floorboards at just the right angle to make the tiny ice crystals sparkle in the dark of the winter evening. His boots left large, confident footprints on the floor, which his little brother tried his best to follow.

At the threshold to the kitchen, though, Sam faltered. He saw his breath weakly drifting away from him like the last puff of smoke from a dying fire. He stumbled a little, reached out a hand to steady himself on a rickety old hall table that was hardly more stable than he was. He could feel Rain's presence like a heavy fog, thick and suffocating, blurring the edges of his vision.

"She's here," he announced quietly.

Dean paused at the top of the stairway and looked back at him. He shook his head in feigned amazement. "We've been here for like two seconds. I swear to God, you're like some kind of freak magnet."

Sam snorted. "I guess that explains why you're always hanging around."

"Hey." Dean shifted his weight, gripping the flashlight a little tighter. "You can do this, right?"

Sam immediately pushed himself off the table and stood up straight. He pressed his lips into a tight line and steeled his jaw defensively. His eyes flashed…something, although Dean wasn't sure what it was. Indignation? Discomfort? Apprehension?

"I'm _fine_," he snapped. "And if you ask me that one more time, Dean – "

"You'll what?" Dean challenged. He rolled his eyes in annoyed exasperation. "Say kick my ass, Sam. Please. I want you to."

Sam stared at him for a moment, stewing in his own irrational anger. Then he shook his head. "I don't even know why I bother arguing with you," he muttered.

"Yeah? Well, me neither, Broody McMoodswing. So fucking knock it off." Dean turned and started down the stairs, taking them a little more recklessly than he probably should. "Get the lead out," he called over his shoulder. "We got shit to do."

**:  
**

At first, Sam's second trip to the McCrays' dark basement was remarkably unremarkable. Everything seemed to be in the exact same places, from the tall shelves that housed the canning jars and various other small scraps of ancient junk, to the old desk where he'd found Rain's hidden box of trinkets, to the snow shoes hanging down from the ceiling. Dean appeared disdainfully unimpressed by the whole situation, which made Sam relax a little, despite the line of sweat making its way from his hairline down to his neck.

Dean tucked his flashlight under his arm and started to reach into his coat for a can of lighter fluid. He was about to tell Sam to toss him the book when he suddenly felt something snake around his torso and wind itself tightly against his chest. The flashlight went flying towards the staircase, and the pressure on his chest violently whipped him backwards. Before he knew what was happening, his body had slammed against a wall, and the basement began to fill with a dim, vaporous light. It didn't seem to have any point of origin; it just glowed, pulsating slightly, chilling Dean to the bone.

"Sam!"

Sam didn't have time to register his brother's predicament before a fierce pain gripped him, leaving him breathless. His stomach seized, and he thought he was going to be sick. It was the same pain he'd been feeling since they'd first driven into Grant, only ten times more intense, and his head was pounding. The cold mass in his chest hardened into what felt like a giant block of ice. Its chill crept up through his diaphragm and lungs, kept moving slowly toward his heart.

He knew he should be worried about his brother, needed to go to him; he'd heard Dean call his name. But the pain he was feeling was too profound to allow him to think about anything else. It encompassed more than just physical discomfort; it filled him with an overwhelming sensation of guilt and bitter regret.

Just then, a shrill shriek rang out in the dark. It brought Sam to his knees, and he clamped his hands over his ears. The noise resounded loudly, deep within his skull. It made his eyes water, and he groaned.

Dean watched his brother go down and started to lunge toward him, but whatever was restraining him held him back. It felt like some kind of invisible rope keeping him tethered about fifteen feet from where Sam was crouched, clutching at the hair by his temples.

"Sam!" Dean yelled. He continued to struggle, but the more he moved, the more tightly it squeezed, until it was becoming difficult for him to breathe. "What the hell's going on?"

_Good question. Tell him to ask another one. _

Sam's jaw dropped, and he squinted past his brother into a far corner of the room. The noise began to dissipate, and he let his hands slide down the sides of his face.

Dean tried to read the look in Sam's eyes. He hadn't heard the shriek, and he didn't understand what was happening. All he knew was he was trapped, and Sam looked like he was on the verge of completely losing it. Sam appeared to be staring at something, and Dean followed his gaze to the corner, but he could see nothing but shadow.

In fact, Sam was seeing shadow, too. But the shadow he was looking at was shifting, slowly congealing into some kind of discernable form. It flowed almost gracefully, as if pushed and molded by a gentle wind, until it solidified and silently stared back at him.

She was young, around Sam's age, and her eyes were impossibly dark. Her brown hair looked mousy thin, stray pieces of it falling out of the bun at the nape of her neck. She had on a long, grey cotton dress with a dark stain on the front of the skirt, and Sam guessed it was the same one she'd worn when she'd murdered and burned her father. Her small face was marred by an unspeakable pain, and the expression made her appear more human than Sam thought should even be possible. Iona Rothschild had called her ugly, and in her pictures she'd look so plain. But at that moment, to Sam, she looked more weathered and weary than anything else. She looked worn down, like life had beaten her.

"Sam!"

At the back of his mind, he sensed a strong, insistent voice calling to him. But Rain was staring at him, and her silence drowned out all other sound. Her lips didn't move; she wasn't speaking. But he heard her intended meaning as if he were channeling her thoughts.

_I've brought them pain_, he heard her say. _I can't help myself._

"Do you want to kill us?" he whispered.

_I just want to be with someone who understands._

"But I don't," Sam insisted. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I don't understand." He swallowed and looked at her sadly. "What I'm feeling. Are you doing this?"

She nodded slowly.

"But why?"

_Because we're alike. You hurt. And you kill the ones you love. Everyone around you is going to die._

Sam stared at her with wide eyes as if she'd slapped him across the face. "No," he whispered. "No. I didn't kill them. And I can protect Dean. Dean won't die."

_Are you going to protect him from yourself? _She smiled. _Don't you find it interesting that it's always those who are closest to us who most adamantly refuse to see us as a threat? _

"Sam!" Dean couldn't stand listening to the one-sided conversation. He had to do something. He had to get free. He had to help his brother. "Sam, listen to me. Is it Rain? Can you see her?"

_He'll be next._

The words were smug with knowing, and panic erupted within him. Sam lifted a shaking hand to his pocket and fumbled for Rain's book.

"No, he won't. I won't let him."

_There's nothing you can do. You can't help it. I told you, we're alike._

"We're alike?" Sam whispered, and the book slipped from his cold fingers. It fell at his feet, halfway under the McCrays' old desk.

"Sam, no," Dean said, squirming against the invisible rope. "You're nothing like her. Listen, you have to burn that book!"

Sam didn't hear him. The icy sensation in his chest stole ever closer to his pounding heart. "Those kids," he said. "They were innocent. Why would you kill them?"

Rain's expression transformed with a jarring suddenness into something sinister. It was the face Iona Rothschild remembered. Sam almost gagged, and he could no longer find it within himself to feel sorry for her. Instead he felt a wave of revolted disgust.

_That was for fun, of course. _She smiled coldly. _I told you. I just can't help myself. _

Rain's arms were at her sides, and she slowly started to gather the fabric of her skirt into her fists. _Your presence in this town was…unexpected,_ she continued._ But now that you're here, I think I understand. You're a gift. Someone who knows what its like to have the blood of his loved ones on his hands. This one delivered you to me._ She nodded her head toward Dean. _But his hold on you is strong. I suppose I'll have to do something to rectify that._

Sam and Rain stared at each other for the longest moment. It was almost as if she was daring him to react, to try to stop her. But he couldn't move. His stomach, his head, his chest… The pain consumed him. She was killing him for shits and giggles. But first she was going to kill his brother.

**:  
**

Dean cringed as the shelving unit opposite him spontaneously exploded, splintering into pieces that flew all over the floor and across the room. Its disintegration left exposed six large rolls of steel rebar, thick, and coiled like screws, that had tightly anchored the shelves to the cinderblock wall. Dean watched in stunned fascination, and Sam in dazed confusion, as one of the bars began to shimmy; it was slowly but surely working its way out of the wall. Suddenly, the bar pulled free, scattering a small puff of shattered cement to the floor, and hurled itself towards Dean. His eyes grew large as he realized what was about to happen, and he dropped to the floor just as the long piece of metal flew over his head, lodging itself firmly into the wall where his chest had just been.

Dean stood quickly. "Sam!" he yelled, spinning towards where his brother knelt. "You have to snap out of it, man. Don't let her do this. You have to get to the book!"

But Sam wasn't listening. Dean's blood ran cold, and it was almost as if time stopped for one long, cruel moment. A deep rumble began to sound, seemingly emanating from the very foundation of the house itself. It sounded just like Sam remembered it, like a train lumbering down a long and barren track at forty miles an hour, and the house began to quake minutely.

Dean put his hands out as if to keep his balance and was able to move several steps away from the wall before his invisible bonds once again brought him to a halt. He gazed warily around him as the tremor started to build in intensity. He looked down at his feet, felt the subtle vibration of the dirt floor through the soles of his boots. The empty canning jars began to rattle against one another. One jar worked its way to the edge of the shelf, teetered, then tumbled to the floor, sending thick shards of glass across the dirt.

"What the – " Dean looked back at his brother and frowned.

Sam's eyes were now fixed on a spot above Dean's head, and there was an expression of horror on his face. Dean swallowed hard, then dared to look up. It was like slow motion. He saw the heavy beam breaking loose from the ceiling, watched it coming closer and closer. He actually had time to imagine it crashing down on him, crushing bones, pinning him to the floor. In his mind, he anticipated the excruciating pain of it breaking things inside of him; he could practically hear Sam's anguished cry as his older brother went down under the weight of the beam.

Sam, himself, was overcome by a burning sensation of supreme desperation. He actually felt before he saw the wooden beam coming free from the ceiling, falling towards his brother's head.

He knew what Rain was doing. Rain was a monster. She was a psychopath of life's circumstances' making, and they were nothing alike. Their situations weren't even remotely parallel. She was just so twisted and lonely that she'd manufactured this comparison between them. She'd latched onto his guilt and exploited his greatest fears.

In the wake of this realization, there was suddenly a warmth in Sam's chest, where the frozen mass had been, and his whole body began to thaw. With the warmth came clarity, and he shook himself. He refused to be a pawn. In anyone's game.

His brother was going to die if he didn't _do something_. He would not – could not – just stand by and watch as another of his loved ones was taken away. Especially not Dean; not after all they'd been through. Not after Sam had assured him – promised him – he was all right to back him up.

Besides, Sam knew. He _knew_ he would never be all that was left.

In an instant, the rope-like pressure vanished from around Dean's ribs, and he was free from Rain's hold. It took him one more split second to comprehend that the cry he thought he'd imagined was real, and suddenly his brother was there.

Dean knew Sam was strong, but the strength and speed with which he grabbed Dean by the arms and effectively tossed him out of the path of the falling beam still surprised him. Dean landed with a heavy grunt against a shelf, and the coffee can of washers and nails crashed to the floor, spilling its contents across the frozen ground.

Sam's own momentum carried him into the wall. He turned to avoid connecting face-first, and his back slammed hard against it, his head the last part of his body to make the impact. He instantly saw stars; and he gasped, but didn't move again. He froze where he was and let his eyes slip closed.

Dean saw his brother hit the wall but didn't have time to react as the beam hit the floor, splitting the distance between them. He scrambled on his hands and knees towards the desk. The rumbling was loud now. He could hear furniture, doors, and broken windows rattling in the rooms above them. It was a like an earthquake, and the house was threatening to cave.

Finally, his fingers touched the worn leather, and he grabbed the book. He didn't give it a second look before he was yanking a small can of lighter fluid from his coat pocket. He tossed the book onto the floor in front of him and doused it with the liquid. Then he pulled out his lighter. He ignited it, and its small flame burned fiercely in the dark. Dean bent down, and immediately the book was on fire. It burned fast. It burned hot. The flames were an unnatural shade of white.

Suddenly, another loud shriek sounded. This time Dean heard it, and he threw his hands over his ears. He stumbled backwards as a piercing white light exploded from the burning book. With another shriek, this one unmistakably human in its agony, the light shot up in a bright cylinder towards the ceiling. Then with a sharp hiss, it burned out and was gone.

The subsequent silence was almost anticlimactic.

Dean sat there on his ass for a moment, panting to catch his breath. The ethereal glow had disappeared, and the only light in the room came from his flashlight, which laid on its side on one of the basement steps. It had been rocking with the vibrations of the house, but now it came to a rest. The rumbling had stopped, and the house stood still as death. Dean's chest was starting to burn as he continued to suck in huge gasps of the freezing air.

He looked around at the McCrays' basement and remembered five people had died here. Their bodies would probably never be found; he wasn't even sure what Rain had done with them. But he had a feeling their spirits had been released from the lake. They'd done their job, and Rain wouldn't be coming back. But her victims' families would never have closure.

Slowly, Dean got to his feet and rubbed at his chest. The feeling of rope tightly slung around his ribcage was still vaguely with him, like a phantom limb. But he was lucky to be alive. His eyes rested on the thick, heavy, support beam that had almost flattened him, and he heaved a belated sigh of relief that seemed to originate clear down from the bottoms of his feet. Sam had saved his life.

Dean's eyes shifted from the beam, and he finally focused on his brother, who was still standing with his back pressed against the wall. Sam was staring at him, a strange expression on his face. He tried to smile briefly, then settled for just a small, abbreviated nod of his head.

Dean's stomach sank. "Sam?"

He rushed over the fallen debris to his brother and grabbed onto him, searched his face. Sam looked down at him, but didn't say anything. Dean at once noticed his breathing was too fast and too shallow to be right.

"Are you hurt?"

Sam swallowed and nodded slowly, but still didn't speak.

"Where?" Dean demanded. "What's wrong?"

Sam gave him a fleeting look of utterly miserable regret before closing his eyes again, and a thin line of red slowly trailed down from the corner of his lips. He trembled for a moment until his knees gave out. Then he slumped against his brother, his head dropping to Dean's shoulder.

Dean struggled to compensate for the sudden shift in weight. And then he saw it. It was slick and black with blood. The rebar. One end of the three-quarter-inch-thick rod of steel was still lodged into the cold wall. The other extended sickeningly through the fabric of his little brother's jacket and into his soft flesh. Dean almost recoiled, but instead tightened his grip on Sam's arms.

"Oh, shit," he gasped. "Sam, don't move."

Squashing down his own sense of panic, Dean quickly snaked his arms around Sam's torso. He had to keep Sam upright, or his body would pull free from the wall. Dean knew that with a wound like this, possibly the only thing keeping Sam alive was the pressure from the very instrument that had impaled him.

Dean's face was in Sam's hair, and he couldn't see what he was doing, but he could feel an exposed length of metal, warm with his brother's blood. He wrapped his hands around it and pulled with all his strength, and the rod came free from the wall. Sam's body collapsed against him, and both brothers sank to the hard ground.

"Stay with me, Sam," Dean said, pulling his brother close to him. He cradled Sam's upper body in his lap in an effort to keep the floor from pushing the rod any further into his back. "I need you to stay awake, okay? I'm gonna need your help. We have to get out of here."

Dean glanced towards the stairs. He couldn't carry his brother, so Sam would have to walk. He just needed Sam to make it out to the Impala, then everything would be okay. They would make it to a hospital where the doctors would patch Sam up, ask no questions, and send the brothers on their merry way. It could happen like that. It had to happen like that. He just needed Sam to suck it up and help Dean help him to the car. When he looked down at his brother, Sam's eyes were open.

"Dean…"

Then something within him crumbled, and he forced what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Don't you say it like that, Sammy," he ordered unsteadily.

"Like what?" Sam asked quietly, with a small shake of his head.

Dean's smile faltered, and he had to swallow hard before he could speak. "Like you're not going to say it again."

Sam sighed. And shuddered. He licked his lips, but there was no more blood.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, Sam," Dean said firmly. "Save that for later, okay? When you can do it right. On your knees. Kissing my ass."

Sam seemed to ignore him. "I'm sorry, Dean," he repeated. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Dean brushed Sam's hair away from his forehead, kept brushing, let his fingers get tangled.

"Well, the pushing you out of the way part I did," Sam amended. "But not this."

"It's okay, Sam," Dean comforted. His heart was racing; he could practically hear the blood rushing through his body. "It's okay. You're all right."

He used to say the same words to a three-year-old Sammy when he'd skinned a knee or bumped his head. _It's okay. You're all right_. And Sammy would believe those words, and they would always keep him from crying.

Sam's eyes started to close again, and Dean touched his cheek.

"Hey, hey, hey. C'mon, Sammy. Stay with me here."

"I'm sorry." Sam forced his eyes open and looked at his brother with a weary smile. "It's just that saving your ass always makes me so fucking tired."

Dean smiled bitterly. "Ah, a wise-ass, eh? Nice to know I can still count on you to throw shit back in my face."

"Really, Dean." Sam's smile faded. "I am so sorry. If I'd realized, I might've done things a little differently. More carefully."

"If you'd realized what, Sam?"

"That here I was living Winchester collective life number nine. And look at me. I only managed to hold onto it for a day."

Dean stroked Sam's hair again and shook his head.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Sam said. It was the ultimate understatement. "There are…_things_. Things I thought I was supposed to do."

"You mean stupid things?" Dean asked with an incredulous snort, remembering their talk in the snow earlier that day. "You're telling me this wasn't it? You've got _more_ stupid moves up your sleeve?"

Sam was completely still for a moment, and Dean felt a surge of panic like fire in his veins.

_Sooner or later, you will lose him._ Iona's words echoed in his mind.

Then Sam's hand moved, weakly clutched at his brother's coat sleeve. He squeezed, and Dean felt the fabric tighten around his wrist.

"I wasn't a bad person, Dean, was I?" Sam asked, his voice soft and breathy. "Not wanting to do this. Not wanting you to do this. Did that really make me a bad person? Was I really selfish for wanting to just…be? For not wanting life to be so difficult? So dangerous?"

"No, Sam," Dean assured him, smoothing his hair compulsively. "Of course not."

It was no more selfish than Dean wanting to keep the three of them all together when he knew what the hunt did to his brother. When he knew it kept him up at night and tormented him by day. When he knew – sooner or later – it would _kill him_.

It hadn't been that Sam was truly selfish for wanting a life. It was that he didn't understand that Dean couldn't imagine any other way of living. Dean had lived like this for 22 years. He was used to it. He was good at it. And giving that up, trying to go back to a life of normalcy, which he'd had once and lost, _frightened_ him. What if he wasn't good at that? What if he lost it again? The hunt was what he thought he wanted. But he wanted Sam, too, and their father. So the fact that Sam didn't seem to want the same things in the same way _hurt_. It wasn't Sam's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It made neither of them selfish or a bad person. It made them complex. It made them real. It made them _normal_.

"It just doesn't seem fair, man. I mean, what was the point? Of any of it? Just to be in pain all the time?"

Sam Winchester was 23-years-old, and his entire existence had been nothing but violence, and pain, and death.

"No, Sam. The point is helping people. Saving people. And we've done that so many times. You've saved _lives_, dude. You've changed the world. That's the point."

"It's been really hard." It was a quiet statement of fact, not necessarily a complaint.

Dean nodded silently. It _had_ been hard. And it was about to get so much worse.

"But there were parts…" Sam smiled faintly, as if recalling a fond memory, and looked up at his big brother with eyes full of such acceptance, and sincerity, and _gratitude,_ that Dean almost couldn't take it. "There were parts, Dean…that were so fucking awesome."

And those words – the way they were spoken, the sentiment behind them, the person speaking them – finally did it. They broke him. Dean closed his eyes tightly, and a tremor went through him. He held fast to Sam's jacket, pressed his cheek into Sam's soft hair. His head was so frighteningly cold, when all Dean wanted at that moment was to feel the warmth of Sam's life very close to him.

"Don't let go, Sam, okay?" he whispered, finding Sam's hand on his sleeve. He grasped his brother's fingers in frantic desperation. "Dammit, Sam!_ Do not let go of me!_"


	10. Chapter 10

**Standard Disclaimer**: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

**Author's Note:** Holy. Freaking. Crap. You're gonna be like, "It took her three months to write _this_?" Well, I've spared you about forty pages of drafts that just didn't work. Many thanks go out to geminigrl for reading a couple of those drafts and basically for listening to me whine about writer's block for a while there. Thanks, also, to those of you who offered gentle nudges encouraging me to wrap this puppy up.

* * *

**Damaged**

by Liz Bach

_**Previously...**_

_"It's been really hard." It was a quiet statement of fact, not necessarily a complaint._

_Dean nodded silently. It had been hard. And it was about to get so much worse._

_"But there were parts…" Sam smiled faintly, as if recalling a fond memory, and looked up at his big brother with eyes full of such acceptance, and sincerity, and gratitude, that Dean almost couldn't take it. "There were parts, Dean…that were so fucking awesome."_

_And those words – the way they were spoken, the sentiment behind them, the person speaking them – finally did it. They broke him. Dean closed his eyes tightly, and a tremor went through him. He held fast to Sam's jacket, pressed his cheek into Sam's soft hair. His head was so frighteningly cold, when all Dean wanted at that moment was to feel the warmth of Sam's life very close to him._

_"Don't let go, Sam, okay?" he whispered, finding Sam's hand on his sleeve. He grasped his brother's fingers in frantic desperation. "Dammit, Sam! Do not let go of me!"_

Part X

Dean slid his hand past the cold metal bar on the side of Sam's hospital bed and wrapped his fingers loosely around his brother's wrist. He placed the rough, calloused pad of his middle finger lightly on a spot between the thick tendons below Sam's thumb and took comfort in the strong, steady throb of his pulse. Dean leaned forward with an elbow on his knee and contemplated the pale green pattern criss-crossed over the faded hospital sheets. Several silent moments passed, and he was breathing in tempo with his brother's heartbeat.

It was late to the point of being early, and the eleventh floor was quiet. Room lights were out, but color televisions reflected paid commercial programming and syndicated reruns off dark window panes and shiny tile floors. It was almost peaceful here at Sam's side; as if Sam's side wasn't the last place anyone could reasonably expect to find any sense of peace. Dean felt peaceful, at least. It was the calmest he'd been since they'd first pulled up in front of the McCrays' abandoned house.

Some random piece of collapsed basement had ripped a hole near the right knee of Dean's jeans, and he kept expecting to feel the pervasive coldness that had pretty much defined their whole, miserable experience in Grant, Nebraska, seeping through to the bare skin on his leg. But he didn't. He actually couldn't feel much of anything, except the worn-soft sheet against his forearm and the reassuring warmth of Sam's hand near his. He had to remind himself that they were finally inside again, and the hospital was warm and dry.

After two hours of sitting in the ER waiting room with elbows on his knees, head down, and his right hand clenched painfully in his left, Dean had quite docilely allowed himself to be led behind a flimsy curtain and checked out. There were several strange, thin bruises wrapped clear around the circumference of his chest, and a deep incision just beneath his knee that took seven stitches to close.

Other than that, Dean had escaped the basement's implosion intact. So the blood that was all over his hands, soaked into his coat, smeared across his neck, was Sam's. Dean was a walking bio-hazard, and they'd marched him back out to the hall, given him a clipboard of forms to complete. His hands shook as he made up a name and struggled to recall Sam's true medical history. He couldn't remember if his little brother was allergic to anything. Life-threatening aversion to homicidal spirit bitches was not one of the options.

Dean heard the rubber-soled shoes of one of the night nurses pad past Sam's door and then fade quietly down the hall. Visiting hours had long expired, but, true to form, Dean Winchester was breaking the rules. His clothes had been dirty, wet, and bloody when Sam was moved from recovery to this private room. They were still dirty and bloody now, but the snow and blood had dried, leaving the fabric stiff and full of ugly, dark stains, the details of which he had not yet been forced to disclose.

They had been left alone in Sam's room for a few hours now. The last nurse who had come in to check on them had purposely left the door slightly ajar, and a thin wedge of soft light snuck through, illuminating a narrow strip of the floor and a portion of an empty wall across from the bed. It was enough by which to see an errant tuft of soft hair at the side of Sam's head flutter almost imperceptibly whenever the heat kicked on. Dean bit the inside of his cheek and suppressed the urge to reach over and tuck the lock of hair back behind his brother's ear.

"Damn hippy," he muttered, finally letting go of Sam's wrist and scrubbing a hand over his face. A small smile came to his lips as he imagined what Sam's reaction to that statement might have been. He leaned back in the hard, plastic chair, folded his arms across his chest, and sighed. The smile faded, and he bent forward again, resumed the physical contact without which he felt irrationally cold.

Dean slid his hand down to lightly brush his brother's palm, and Sam's long fingers unconsciously curled, cupping his brother's hand in his. It was such a simple, reflexive movement; like the way a baby clutched tightly to whatever you gave him. But Dean was exhausted and worried, and the gesture caused his breath to hitch.

On those semi-normal days back when they were kids, when the three of them would walk together down a busy street or roam the long aisles of a grocery store, John would seemingly absently hold his hand out to his littlest boy, and Sammy could wrap his entire tiny hand around just their father's index finger. It was probably as tight a grasp as John had ever had on his youngest son; and Sam had let go as soon as he'd realized he could. Was it unreasonable, then, for them to have been so surprised – so completely blindsided – when Sam had eventually managed to wander away? When it suddenly became clear that there were things in this world that just couldn't be held onto, no matter how badly you wanted to, and no matter how hard you tried?

"Sammy." Dean said it quietly, tentatively, as if he was afraid for anyone other than his brother to hear.

He'd been sitting there for hours, and by now he wasn't really expecting a response. So it came as a mild shock when Sam actually opened his eyes and looked at him.

"Hey, Sam," he smiled gently, otherwise paralyzed with relief. "Good to see you're finally awake. They charge by the day here, you know."

Sam kept watching him with dark, hooded eyes. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper. "I forgot you're more accustomed to places that charge by the hour."

Dean smiled again and gave Sam's fingers a quick, hard squeeze before letting go and slouching back into the chair. He felt suddenly weak, and his hands had begun to tremble. He closed his eyes for a moment, but bolted upright again almost immediately when he heard the bedclothes rustle.

"When can I get out of here?" Sam asked, struggling ineffectually with the sheet.

"Uh…I'm thinking probably not right this second," Dean frowned, easily stilling him with a hand to his arm. "So why don't you just lay your ass back down, okay?"

"I'm fine," Sam insisted as his eyes slid shut and he sank back into the pillow.

"Right," Dean scoffed. "Maybe you wanna get a second opinion on that one." He reached over and poked his brother lightly on the chest near his shoulder.

Sam cringed and popped one eye open. "Ow."

"Did that hurt?"

"Yes."

Dean poked him again, and this time Sam's hand feebly drifted up toward his shoulder. "_Ow!_"

"How about that?"

"Okay, okay," Sam scowled. "You made your point, Dr. Quinn. Your mean, ruthless, violent point."

"You just got out of surgery," Dean reminded him seriously. He stood and took a deep breath, ran both hands over his hair. The legs of the chair scraped across the tile as he nudged it out of the way. He walked over to the window and slid two fingers between a couple slats of the blinds, separated them so he could look out at the thick snowflakes as they went streaking past. A storm had developed and was getting worse as the night wore on. "You can now add freak of medical science to your list of freakish accomplishments."

"What happened?"

Dean spun around to glare at him incredulously. "You impaled yourself on a fucking metal stake," he snapped. It came out more harshly than intended. He wasn't sure why the question pissed him off so badly; maybe it was something about the innocent way Sam had asked it.

"No, I know," Sam clarified. "I meant after. Here. Surgery, or whatever."

Dean sighed heavily and turned back to the window. He could see the Impala from where he was standing. Snow had already accumulated about five inches up the tires, and the tracks he'd made tearing into the spot like a madman had all but disappeared.

"No permanent damage," he said vaguely. "Can you believe that shit?"

"I guess I'm just lucky," Sam murmured, his eyes slipping shut yet again.

"Irony," Dean snorted, still staring out the window. "That's great, Sam."

A strong wind swirled the snowflakes outside, prolonging their descent. He dropped his hand and let the blinds snap back into place with a metallic rattle. Then he just stood there, and the tension threatened to overwhelm the room.

"Hey, Dean?"

Dean leaned his shoulder into the corner between the cold window and the wall. He eyed his brother surreptitiously, afraid that Sam might sense the scrutiny, even though his eyes were still closed.

"Huh," he grunted, wary of what his brother was about to ask.

"Tell me a story."

Dean slumped deeper into the corner and closed his eyes. A small smile touched his lips, and he wiped the back of his hand over his brow.

"A story?" he repeated, pushing himself off the wall.

"Yeah. I'm in the mood for something light."

Dean hooked the chair with his foot and dragged it back to its place beside Sam's bed. He sat down and folded both forearms against the bedrail, rested his chin on his wrist.

"Okay," he mused. "How about that one time when we were kids, and I got you to eat a spoonful of ants for a quarter and a stick of gum. That one's moderately amusing."

Sam opened his eyes and snorted indignantly. "Dude, I _never_ ate ants."

Dean gazed back with an annoyingly disinterested expression on his face. "Yes, you did. You were like four."

"Well, if that's true, it says more about you than it does about me." Sam frowned. "It means even at eight you were already a dick."

"You swore you could feel them moving around in your stomach, and I told you it was because they were multiplying," Dean continued. He grinned at the memory. "Yeah…for a four-year-old, you got pretty pissed."

Sam's frown deepened into a grimace. He hoped his brother was lying. "That was a terrible story," he said finally.

"Sorry," Dean shrugged. "I thought you'd like it."

"I've got some better ones. I'll have to tell you..."

Sam's voice trailed off, and he was left just staring up at the ceiling. Dean could literally see the difference when his brother's breathing became more measured, and pain caused his brow to crease and his eyes to glass over. Sam slowly shifted a hand and began kneading it gingerly across his chest, at a spot below his heart, the place where the rebar would have penetrated his skin had it gone all the way through.

Dean sobered immediately. Gaining his feet, he reached out without thinking and grabbed his brother's elbow.

"Easy," he soothed.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe deeply. The pain was like a harsh echo of that night. Piercing. Like punishment. Like penance. He rubbed harder and prayed for it to stop.

"I'll call somebody," Dean said, reaching for the call button hanging over the side of the bedrail.

But Sam stopped him with a hand to his wrist. "No, wait. I'm fine. It's going away."

Dean looked first at Sam's white-knuckled hold on his arm. Then he looked at his brother's face.

"You're not fine, Sam," he insisted, shaking his head. "Let me call someone. They can help you with this."

"I don't need anyone to help me," Sam said softly – brittle – easing his grip only a fraction. "I don't want anyone to help me, Dean."

Dean froze with one wrist trapped in his brother's ridiculously strong grasp and the other hand wrapped around the smooth metal of the bedrail. He stood there like an idiot for a moment, then slowly lowered himself back into the chair.

"That's it, Sam," he said quietly, but firmly; trying for that same authoritative tone of voice their father used to employ. The one that had only worked until Sammy was about eight years old. "I want to know what that little bitch said to you tonight."

Sam rolled his eyes and turned his head toward the window.

"God – Dean… Do we have to talk about this right now?"

Dean's eyes bulged. "Do we have to – " he repeated in disbelief. "Fuck, Sammy, I'd just as soon we _never_ talked about it! Seriously, I'd shelf this conversation forever if I didn't think not having it would end up killing you."

"Really? 'Cause I thought your concern was whether or not it would end up killing _you_."

That stung.

For a brief moment, Dean marveled that his little brother even had it in him. But then he remembered this was Sam; and clearly there was no longer any telling what Sam was and was not capable of. Still, Dean shook his head incredulously, a bitter smile on his lips.

"God, you're like a little kid, you know that?" He reluctantly extracted his hand from Sam's and stood up, walked over to the window and stared out. It was snowing even harder now. "Just grow the hell up, Sam, okay? And cut us both some fucking slack for once."

Sam didn't respond, and Dean didn't turn to look at him. He didn't want to see Sam laid up in a hospital bed with a near-fatal stab wound in his back. He didn't want to see his brother engulfed in these layers of pain that the doctors and drugs couldn't touch. He didn't want to see his own inadequacies staring back at him in the form of a brother he wasn't sure he could protect. And most of all, he didn't want to see what their already twisted version of reality had become.

The room stilled, and a ragged cough echoed from somewhere down the hall.

Dean was livid. He was practically _vibrating_.

"I know what this is about," he said after several more moments of silence.

Sam snorted, and it was such an ugly sound that Dean wanted to run over and strangle him. At the very least, beat the ability to make that sound right out of him.

"You only think you know what this is about," Sam answered, an abnormally low, menacing quality tainting his voice.

"Look, man, Iona Rothschild is a fucking fake. She doesn't know you, and she certainly doesn't know anything about your life, past, present, or future. So that shit she said – "

"She was going to kill you," Sam interrupted softly, closing his eyes and bringing a palm up to his forehead.

"What?" Dean turned and cocked his head. "Are you serious? That old hag? Dude, I could kick her ass blindfolded and with both arms tied behind my back. She wouldn't even have to be in the same friggin' room."

"Not her," Sam bit out through clenched teeth. The fingers over his brow curled into a tight fist, and he ground white knuckles against his skull.

Dean just stood there for a second. "Then who? What are you talking about? Rain? Is that what she said?"

"Because you're important to me," he continued shakily.

It was that unintentional, on-the-verge-of-innocent tone of voice again, the one that could catapult Dean back in time. Before Jess; before their dad disappeared; before Sam left; before every conversation between father and son escalated into a confrontation and then a heated fight; before Sammy the obedient child turned into Sam the conflicted adult; before Sam appeared destined for something Dean was helpless to prevent.

"Maybe I should have told you when I started feeling bad…"

"Damn straight you should've."

"…but I was afraid you would try to go after her on your own…"

"Hell yeah, I would've."

"…then don't you get it? Can't you understand why I couldn't let you do that?"

Dean didn't respond. He didn't understand.

"They all know, Dean. I don't know how, and I don't know what I did to make them care." He shook his head sadly. "But they know," he said again. "They know how to injure me, man. They know how to kill me. First Mom, and then Jess… Dean, I swear to God. So help me, _you_ _will not be next_."

Sam opened his eyes then and looked up at his brother, his expression so young and brave, yet so tired and afraid; so thankful and yet so full of grief. It was a look only Sam could give, and only Dean could comprehend. What passed between them was beyond anything that could ever be explained. In that look, Dean knew that no matter what happened, no matter what horrors kept them together, no matter which evils ripped them apart, his brother loved him. His brother needed him. And no matter how dangerously the compulsion manifested itself, his brother would stop at nothing to keep him safe.

There was a fractured place in Dean's heart where his worst fears dwelled. And within that place there was an inkling of doubt that Dean could ever really predict what Sam was and was not willing to do with his life, including sacrifice it. At that precise moment, that damaged place began to ache.

Sam was apologizing to him, in his own fucked-up way. For the past two days, and for impending events. Sam, who could see the goddamn future.

"You don't have to do this," Dean insisted quietly. It was all he could think to say.

Sam shook his head. "The things I don't say to you," he said softly, avoiding his brother's painfully concerned gaze. "I'm not trying to keep secrets from you. The things I don't say…it's because…I can't. I just can't say them, Dean."

"But not saying them, Sam? How does that help you? What does that change?" Dean leaned forward, desperate for Sam to listen to reason for once in his life. "What has not saying them ever changed for you?"

Then there was silence. It hung over them for a long time. Until Sam suddenly flinched and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. His hand went back to his chest and pressed roughly into the pain.

"Oh, _Christ_," he hissed through clenched teeth. His body stiffened as he tensed against the burning pressure radiating from the wound in his back.

"Hey. Hey!" Dean's voice was intense, insistent. "Look at me." He punched the call button with one hand and pointed the index and middle fingers of the other toward his eyes. "Right here, man, okay?"

Sam did as he was told, and his eyes were wet.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean said, reaching down to squeeze his brother's hand.

Sam kept looking at him, and Dean forced a lopsided smile.

"Tell me a story."

Sam managed a small, clipped chuckle through the pain and shook his head. "Shut up, Dean."

"No, not that one. That one's almost as bad as my one about the ants."

Sam took a deep, shuddery breath before his eyes slipped closed. "Fuck you, Dean," he mumbled as darkness closed in.

Dean closed his own eyes and pressed Sam's hand against his chin. He squeezed tighter.

"Ah, Sammy. That's my favorite."

* * *

_Okay, now that you've read it, I want to apologize. I so did not want to do the obligatory hospital scene. Ask Gem. And I tried a couple different ways to get around it. But the thing is, if you end up with a big, metal rod in your back, you're not just gonna be able to walk it off. Hence...this. At any rate, I hope it was worth the wait. One more chapter - an epilogue - and I can finally put this baby to bed._


	11. Epilogue

Standard Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

**

* * *

Damaged**

by Liz Bach

Epilogue

Setting fire to the McCray farmhouse and watching it go up in flames was meant to be cathartic. It was supposed to represent closure – for the McCrays, for Rain's victims, for Dean Winchester's kid brother, who'd come pretty damn close to losing his own life down there in that frigid basement. But Sam didn't appear to be taking anything away from the bonfire that blazed before them. In fact, he looked remarkably indifferent to the entire proceeding.

Dean balled his fists and shoved them deep into his pockets as the flames popped and churned and breathed in the cold midnight air. They'd been standing there too long; the fire was bright enough and the smoke thick enough now that someone driving by would surely realize something was amiss out at the old abandoned farm. The last thing they needed was to get caught torching a crime scene.

But, as unimpressed as he seemed by the spectacle of the house burning down, Sam made no discernable movement to leave. Actually, he hadn't moved from his present position since before Dean had emerged from the doorway with an empty gasoline container in one hand and irreverently flicked a single match behind him into the parlor. Despite the snow and frost, the house had gone up like kindling, and now it burned with a vengeance worthy of its former supernatural inhabitant.

Dean dug the heel of his boot into a spot of mud that had slowly materialized as the snow around the immediate vicinity of the house began to melt. Then he sniffed loudly and looked back up toward the fire.

"We should probably hit the road," he said with masterfully feigned disinterest.

Sam's brow furrowed, and Dean wondered what he was thinking.

The old wooden frame weakened in the flames, and the house began to fold in on itself, sending a spray of yellow sparks dancing and spinning up toward the dull black sky. Dean stared up at them. Kept staring, even after the sparks had all burned out.

"My entire life didn't flash before my eyes…"

Dean turned to his brother, who was still looking at the house. The orange glow of the fire gave an illusion of color to Sam's pale skin. It made Dean slightly sick to his stomach to think that Sam would actually appear healthier and more alive here in the dark with a huge ball of fire blazing before him than he did in the light of his everyday life. The flames flickered and pulsated, reflected bright movement in Sam's glassy eyes.

"Only the most painful parts."

Dean looked away quickly and didn't bother Sam about leaving again. They stood there for a long time being warmed by this, their most recent act of destruction.

**:  
**

Some time later, the wheels over so many miles of asphalt sounded and felt like sluggish sixteenth notes thrumming a steady rhythm deep within the thick metal and worn leather of the Impala, and Sam let that and the throaty rumble of the V8 lull him into a tolerable state of detachment. His eyelids were heavy, but he refused to sleep. The constant drone of ambient road noise filled his mind and vibrated throughout his body, and the snowflakes streaking through the headlights were like tiny stars flaring up briefly, falling, and burning out.

It was late, and the highway was practically abandoned. Despite the incessant snowfall, the roads were more or less clear, only wet. They'd been driving for two hours, and at some point during that time, Sam had absently folded his hands together and tucked them between his cheek and the cold glass of the passenger side window. It was an unintentionally sweet, childlike gesture that Dean had caught out of the corner of his eye and then unsuccessfully attempted to ignore. It was dark, they were tired, and the last week had been long and bad; and now Sam had this uncomplicated, innocent look about him that couldn't possibly have been any further from a true reflection of the state of Sam Winchester's current circumstances or his life.

They'd been listening to live radio, of all things, keeping an ear out for the weather report. The roads had been decent so far, but Dean expected them to get worse as soon as the snow began to stick. They would be downright treacherous once the moisture froze over, giving way to sheets of invisible, black ice.

Both brothers knew the safest thing they could do would be to just stop. But Dean drove on, ostensibly ignoring the signs of danger. And for the moment, Sam was too tired to do anything but let him.

So the wheels kept spinning, and the snow kept falling. The road lay out long and dark before them, and the radio crackled on as they passed from one signal radius into the next.

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_And there it is. Thanks so much for reading; I hope you'll be compelled to review. This was a labor of love, and it would be so nice to know what you think now that it's finished. :)_


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